Electorall roll, 2012

Electoral statistics are annual counts of the number of people who are registered on electoral registers and are therefore entitled to vote.

Electoral Roll statistics are based on the parliamentary constituency boundaries and are published for both parliamentary and local government electors. Until 14 December 2011 parliamentary constituency boundaries were the same as those for Assembly constituencies. However The Parliamentary Constituencies and Assembly Regions (Wales) (Amendment) Order 2011 made changes to the National Assembly for Wales constituency and electoral regions boundaries so that the two are now different (see notes below).

A table showing National Assembly for Wales electors based on the Assembly constituencies from December 2011 will be published on StatsWales shortly.

Key results

• the number of local government electors in Wales increased by 0.3 per cent from 2,322,100 on 1 December 2011 to 2,328,300 on 16 October 2012
• the largest Assembly constituency is Cardiff South and Penarth with 78,600 electors and the smallest is Arfon with 41,200 electors

Notes

(1) Owing to the Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) elections for England and Wales held in November 2012, the annual voter canvass was conducted early and new electoral registers published on 16 October 2012, rather than 1 December 2012. This change was to ensure that the electoral register was as complete and accurate as possible prior to the elections.

The Parliamentary Constituencies and Assembly Regions (Wales) (Amendment) Order 2011 made changes to the National Assembly for Wales constituency boundaries and electoral regions as a result of local government boundary changes in 6 local authority areas. The Order did not make the same changes to the boundaries of the Parliamentary constituencies. The Order came into effect on 14 December 2011 so from this point onwards there are some differences between the Parliamentary constituencies and the National Assembly for Wales Constituencies.

The tables of electoral statistics are derived from data supplied to ONS by Electoral Registration Officers by 16 October 2012. The Total numbers of electors include those registered to vote on the qualifying date but also includes attainers. Attainers are those who reach 18 years of age during the currency of the register, i.e. before the next qualifying date. For most years the qualifying date is 1 December; for 2012 the qualifying date was 16 October (please see footnote 1).

Those electors who are eligible to vote in local government elections in Wales are eligible to vote in National Assembly for Wales elections. Entitlement to vote in 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, 2012 (external link)

StatsWales website: Electoral register (external link)

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 1595
Email: stats.popcensus@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

February 2014 (provisional - to be confirmed on 'Due out soon' page)