§ Lord Jenkin of Rodingasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Whitty on 22 May (WA 43), whether the figures for turnout in the elections for the Mayor and the Greater London Assembly include or exclude spoiled ballot papers; and whether they will give the figures for spoiled ballot papers at each of the seven London elections referred to in the Written Answer. [HL2609]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Whitty)The turnout figures for the Mayor and London Assembly elections include all those who spoiled their ballot papers.
194WAIn the Mayor and Assembly election on 4 May, each elector had four opportunities to vote—first choice for Mayor, second choice for Mayor, constituency assembly member and London member. If an elector chose not to vote in any one of the four ballots by leaving the ballot paper "blank"—as they have every right to do—this was recorded as a "rejected" vote. Other "rejected" votes were "multiple votes", where the voter had voted more than once, papers where marks identify the voter and "uncertain votes", where the voter's intention was not clear.
Thirty eight thousand, one hundred and forty-one ballot papers for the Mayor election were rejected; 293,168 voters did not give a valid second preference for Mayor. For the London Assembly, 161,972 ballot papers in the Constituency Member election were classified as rejected and 88,142 ballot papers in the London Member election were classified as rejected. The vast majority of rejected papers were left blank, so it is clear that whilst most electors gave a first choice for Mayor, a large number decided not to give a second choice for Mayor, or vote for the Assembly.
The number of rejected ballot papers at GLC elections were:
1964* 8,213 1967* 6,456 (excludes Hounslow—for which figures are not available)
1970* 4,842 1973 7,704 1977 8,258 1981 9,725 *multi-seat constituencies used Eighteen thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eight ballot papers were classified as rejected in the 1986 ILEA election.