Electoral Roll, 2008

The figures are published for local authority and current Parliamentary constituencies and are based on local authority electors (also National Assembly for Wales electors – see note below).

Data on Assembly constituencies/the new Parliamentary constituencies (that will come into effect in the event of a general election) are also being published.

Key Results

• The number of local government electors in Wales increased from 2.274 million in December 2007 to 2.280 million in December 2008 (increase of 0.2 per cent).
• The Vale of Glamorgan was the local authority that witnessed the largest growth in the number of local government electors (2.2 per cent).
• Bridgend was the local authority that witnessed the largest fall in the number of local government electors (fall of 2.2 per cent).
• The largest Assembly constituency is Cardiff South and Penarth with 74,000 electors and the smallest is Arfon with 40,000 electors.

Notes

The tables of electoral statistics are derived from data supplied to ONS by Electoral Registration Officers at the end of December 2008. The electoral register represents the number of people who would be entitled to vote if an election had been held on 1 December 2008.  It is based on the qualifying date of 15 October 2008.

Entitlement to vote for National Assembly for Wales and Local Government elections is slightly different from UK Parliament. Resident EU citizens are eligible to vote at Local Government and National Assembly for Wales elections but not at UK Parliament elections.

Electoral rolls provide counts of the number of people registered to vote.  It should be noted that the number of people eligible to vote is not the same as the resident population aged 18 and over. There are numerous reasons for this. For example not everyone who is usually resident is entitled to vote (foreign citizens from outside of the EU and Commonwealth, prisoners, etc. are not eligible), some people do not register to vote and people who have more than one address may register in more than one place. Further, there is inevitably some double counting of the registered electorate as electoral registration officers vary in how quickly they remove people from the registers after they have moved away from an area or after they have died. These factors have a differential impact from area to area.  This means care needs to be exercised when comparing population estimates with electoral roll.  

Further information

Office for National Statistics website: UK Electoral Statistics - Local Government and Parliamentary Electors

StatsWales website: Electoral Register

Contact

Tel: 029 2080 1341
E-mail: stats.popcensus@wales.gsi.gov.uk