Advertisement

Election turnout ‘was the highest in 25 years’ with 32 million votes

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson makes a speech (Getty)
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson makes a speech (Getty)

Britain may have ended up with a hung parliament – but the snap election clearly galvanised voters, with the highest turnout in 25 years.

More than 32 million votes have been counted, and the total is thought unlikely to rise higher than the 33.6 million who voted in 1992.

In the 1992 election, Conservative leader John Major made it four general election wins in a row for the Tories.

READ MORE: Brenda from Bristol isn’t happy (again) about the prospect of another election

READ MORE: General Election 2017: The story of Labour’s campaign

MORE: BBC reporter apologises after talking about Theresa May’s ‘thick make-up’

MORE: People are really scared that Boris Johnson is going to be the next Prime Minister

But turnout is usually expressed as a proportion of the electorate, meaning the current figure of 68.7% is the highest since the 1997 general election.

It is also the first time Labour has gained seats in a general election since 1997.

Theresa May’s gamble backfired (Picture Getty)
Theresa May’s gamble backfired (Picture Getty)

The turnout figure marks a rise on that in 2015 of 66.2% and fits a trend that has seen an increasing proportion of the electorate voting since 2001.

Some 71.5% of the electorate turned out in the 1997 general election, ushering in a Labour government under Tony Blair.

But then turnout dropped significantly to 59.4% in 2001, followed by 61.2% in 2005 and 65.1% in 2010 – which returned a hung parliament.

In 2017, the highest turnout in an individual seat so far was 79.8% in Winchester, while the lowest turnout was 51.9% in Wolverhampton South East.

At this stage, there is no demographic breakdown of voters so claims there was a higher turnout among young voters cannot be measured.