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ONS again not managing to produce stats for all local elections until December 2026

this was the note attached to the 2025 data download ( nothing for 2026) :
"Exceptionally, this edition of electoral registration statistics does not include the usual local authority (LA) statistics, providing counts of the number of people registered to vote in local elections. The reason for this is that the software systems available to LAs to supply the data to ONS had not all been updated to reflect legislative changes that have affected who is allowed to vote in these elections. Rather than publish LA statistics that were partial or inaccurate, we liaised with key data users and reached the decision not to publish this year.

The legislative changes involved have been:

  1. In 2021, the franchise for elections to Welsh local authorities was changed to reduce the minimum voting age to 16, and extend the voting rights of foreign nationals. This was done to bring the franchise into line with that for elections to the Welsh Parliament (Senedd).

  2. In 2024, the franchise for local government elections in England also changed, reducing the number of EU citizens who were eligible to vote.

Although efforts to update the systems progressed during 2025, they were not all updated in time for the December 2025 collection. In response, ONS liaised with key data users and agreed that it would publish December 2025 statistics for Westminster parliamentary constituencies only, which were unaffected by the legislative changes at local level.

As at March 2026, the system updates are nearing completion, and we fully intend that the December 2026 edition will once again include statistics for local authorities, fully reflecting legislative changes."

So we have no idea how many were registered and how many actually voted - until December 2026!

The Rule of Claw - if the prospects for the Gov look bad - don’t publish the stats!

cheers

PS Labour seems to have lost around 1485 seats in the UK as a whole - worst result for over 15 years - Reform picked up most and Greens some. I could only vote for racists, genocide supporters or green hoax believers - so no point in stepping out of the house.

pps Labour lost 1496 English councillors, 4 lost in Scotland and 35 lost in Wales = total loss by Labour of 1535 according to BiBiC

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