Results and turnout at the 2012 Wales local elections

Local elections were held for 1,244 seats in 21 authorities in Wales. Elections in Anglesey were postponed until May 2013. 

Some 3,300 candidates contested the local elections, yielding a candidate/seat ratio of 2.7 overall. This is higher than in 2008 despite one council fewer having elections.

The proportion of uncontested seats remains high compared with both England and Scotland. 99 seats (8.1% of the total) were uncontested. In 2008 the proportion of contested seats was also 92% of the total; at the previous election in 2004 it was 88% and in 1999 it was just 78%.

Some 2.12 million out of a total of 2.26 Welsh electors had a contested election in their ward.

More than 10,000 electors (0.5% of the total) registered to vote in the weeks leading up to the election under the so-called ’11 day rule’.

Nearly 818,000 votes were cast at the ballot box, making the overall turnout in contested seats 38.6%. This was some four percentage points below that in 2008. However, it remains considerably higher than the local election turnout in England which was 31% this year and 35% in 2008.

Only a small fraction of Welsh voters (0.6%) had their ballots rejected at the count.

Over one third of a million postal votes were issued -17.5% of all those with a contested election in their ward.

In four council areas more than a fifth of the electorate had a postal vote; in three, fewer than 14% registered for one.

More than two in three (68.2%) of those with a postal ballot returned it. In contrast only a third of those electors required to vote ‘in person’ did so (33.0%). 

The proportion of postal votes rejected or otherwise not included in the count was 4.4%.

Rejection following a mismatch of signature and/or date of birth was much more common than rejection for incomplete information.

In more than a quarter of cases of rejection voters returned their postal voting envelopes but failed to include either the ballot paper itself or the verification statement or both.

Nearly one percent of electors with a postal vote were granted a waiver to use their date of birth as their sole identifier. 

Some 3,100 local electors (0.15% of the total electorate) appointed proxies to act on their behalf.