Results and turnout at the 2016 National Assembly for Wales election

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You can also download our full report, written by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Elections Centre, Plymouth University, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA).
 

Summary

Simultaneous elections were held to choose 60 members of the National Assembly for Wales as well as four Police and Crime Commissioners.

The number of constituency candidates at the Assembly elections was 248 -a record- compared to 176 in 2011 and 197 in 2007. Sixteen parties or groups were represented in the regional lists together with 2 individuals.

Labour won a total of 29 out of 60 Assembly seats. The Conservatives took 11, Plaid Cymru 12; UKIP seven; and the Liberal Democrats a single seat. No other party or Independent candidate won a seat.

In the PCC contests, there were 19 candidates across 4 police authority areas. Labour won two of the posts and Plaid Cymru two.

Almost 2.25 million electors were eligible to vote at these elections: a decrease of more than 40,000 compared with 2011.

The names of about 3.3% of those on the ‘final’ register were added between December 2015 and 13 March 2016, and a further 1.6% between 13 March and the deadline of 16 April.

More than 1,020,000 votes were counted in both the NAW constituency and regional level polls, making the overall turnout 45.6% - almost four percentage points higher than in 2011. Slightly fewer votes were cast at the PCC contests where the turnout was 45.2%.

The proportion of ballot papers rejected at the count was again very small at the NAW elections – 0.54% of constituency ballots and 0.64% of list
ballots. However, 5.3% of first votes were rejected at the PCC contests in Wales compared with 3.1% in 2012.

Across Wales, 395,878 postal ballots were issued, representing 17.6% of the electorate. This is the largest proportion to date at an Assembly election, but fractionally below the 17.7% at the 2015 general election.

More than seven in 10 of postal ballot forms issued were returned (73.9%). Of these, 3.5% (constituency) and 4.0% (regional list) were rejected because of failures relating to personal identifiers or non-inclusion of either a ballot paper or statement in the envelope. Some 5% of postal vote forms at the PCC elections were rejected – almost half for a failure to enclose the relevant ballot paper.