Are You One Of Wrexham’s 65% Who Hold The Power In The Council Elections?

Will you be taking a greater interest in Council Elections, and will those near you turn out and vote this time as the odds are they did not last time around!

With just eight months until the 2017 local government elections, some have already started to think about putting themselves forward as candidates. Others may have already started to think about the voting process and if they would like to see a change in their area, or would like to support their incumbent councillor.

In July we reported that the starting gun for the local elections had been fired, with Wrexham Labour Party, Wrexham Conservatives and Plaid Cymru each putting messages / blogs out encouraging prospective candidates to get in touch.

With this in mind Wrexham.com have had a nose through the 2012 voting statistics to see what the turnout was across the 52 wards in Wrexham, as many Councillors are elected on majorities of a few hundred people at most.

Turnout in the 2012 local government election was low, with just 34.16% of those on the electorate going out and voting. To put in perspective of the 96,601 on the electorate only 36,780 votes were cast. The electorate are not even the total number people here, just those registered to vote.

Figures across the 52 wards varied, however the average turnout for Wrexham was just 34.16% meaning around 65% of people did not bother to vote. These people could be key for the upcoming election, as they more than hold the power to change the look of the Council and also give it a stronger mandate from the people in the area.

From the information on a ward by ward basis only Garden Village and Stansty saw voter turnouts higher than 50%. To contrast that, Plas Madoc had the lowest turnout, with just 19.88% of the 1,313 registered to vote in the area actually doing so – with it likely more there were unregistered to vote.

Three wards were uncontested, meaning only one person stood in the Esclusham, Johnstown and Llangollen Rural wards – and therefore winning the seat.

For those who want to see some very early coverage from us when we were just a tiny website can see when those who did vote saw sweeping gains for Labour mainly to the cost of the Lib Dems – full retro 8am to 2am blow by blow updates here.

You can find out the voter turnout for your ward in the 2012 elections and even who your local councillor is, here! There was of course a by election held in Llay last year where we were asked to clarify things as we said it was a Labour to Lib Dem move for the seat, which in some people’s eyes was not the case.

(Top pic from Fleur Leslie in 2012 of a duck going to vote, which is more than a lot of Wrexhamites did….!)