Swindon Council election, 2003
Encyclopedia
The 2003 Swindon Council election took place on 1 May 2003 to elect members of Swindon
Unitary
Council in Wiltshire
, England
. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control
.
After the election, the composition of the council was
voting. These trials, which were open for voting in the week before the election, followed a trial of electronic voting
in the 2002 election
which saw turnout
increase by 3.5%.
Overall turnout in the election was 29.82%, lower than in 2002. However the number of electronic votes increased by 75% from 2002 to 11,055, including 349 cast by television.
Swindon (borough)
The Borough of Swindon is a local government authority in South West England. It is centred on the town of Swindon and forms part of the ceremonial county of Wiltshire...
Unitary
Unitary authority
A unitary authority is a type of local authority that has a single tier and is responsible for all local government functions within its area or performs additional functions which elsewhere in the relevant country are usually performed by national government or a higher level of sub-national...
Council in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control
No overall control
Within the context of local councils of the United Kingdom, the term No Overall Control refers to a situation in which no single party achieves a majority of seats and is analogous to a hung parliament...
.
After the election, the composition of the council was
- ConservativeConservative Party (UK)The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
29 - LabourLabour Party (UK)The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
22 - Liberal Democrat 8
Voting trial
Swindon was one of 3 councils which trialed voting by television in 2003 for the first time anywhere in the world. Voters in Swindon also had 8 electronic information kiosks in the town centre where they could vote, telephone and internetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
voting. These trials, which were open for voting in the week before the election, followed a trial of electronic voting
Electronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
in the 2002 election
Swindon Council election, 2002
The 2002 Swindon Council election took place on 2 May 2002 to elect members of Swindon Unitary Council in Wiltshire, England. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control....
which saw turnout
Voter turnout
Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...
increase by 3.5%.
Overall turnout in the election was 29.82%, lower than in 2002. However the number of electronic votes increased by 75% from 2002 to 11,055, including 349 cast by television.