Your Comment of February 25 was right to describe the turnout in the Stanmore South by-election as "appalling". By anyone's standards it is disappointing that only 27 per cent of those entitled to vote did so.
However, what is generally unknown is the fact that for the last couple of years the turnout in local by-elections has been extremely low.
On the day of the Stanmore South by-election there were several other local contests. In Aldershot the turnout was 17 per cent; in three elections in Barnsley turnout was 10 per cent, 12 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively, and in a county council contest in Worcestershire, 26 per cent of electors voted. Only in Wyre Forest, with 31 per cent, was there a turnout higher than Stanmore's. So, by these comparisons, 27 per cent was not so bad after all.
I can't offer a reason for this pattern, only to speculate that with the continued popularity of the Labour Government there are few burning issues to send electors to the polls in droves.
Colin L Gray, Lorne Road,
Wealdstone
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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