You are in: Home › Statistics › Publications and Data › Electoral Statistics › Explanatory Notes ›

Electoral Statistics

18 September 2008

Explanatory Notes

1.         Since 2001 registers have been updated each month to reflect changes notified to Electoral Registration Officers.  Previously the register was updated annually. The Electoral Registration Officers continue to undertake the annual canvass and the full register is published on the 1st December. The information presented in these tables is derived from that supplied by the 15 Electoral Registration Officers in Scotland using the full register published on 1 December each year.

2.         In order to be classed as "resident" in a constituency on 15 October, the elector must be normally living at the address on the qualifying date. If the elector is temporarily absent (e.g. on holiday or away at university) this will not disqualify them from being classed as resident.  The rolling registration scheme allows electors who move address to be added to the register at that time. There is no longer a need to wait until the next annual canvass.

3.         British citizens, Commonwealth citizens and citizens of the Irish Republic who are resident in Scotland on the qualifying date, and who will be 18 years or over during the currency of the register, are eligible to be registered for UK parliamentary elections. Registered Service electors (see paragraph 5) and overseas electors (see paragraph 8) are also eligible.

4.         Attainer is the term used to describe a person who attains the age of 18 during the currency of the register, and is entitled to vote at an election on or after his or her eighteenth birthday.

5.         Service electors are members of HM Armed Forces and their spouses, plus Crown servants and British Council employees and their spouses residing abroad. They do not register in the same way as residents and may not necessarily reside in the area of registration. Armed forces' spouses have the option of registering as residents while in the UK.  The number of Service electors has remained fairly constant over the last few years, and is substantially less than the numbers of Service electors in previous years (see Table 1) owing to a change in legislation. This introduced new rules for Service electors whereby Service elector applications are required to be completed every three years rather than indefinitely as previously. This means that many Service electors may not have renewed their application because they have now left the Services, or have opted to register as a civilian elector - as they are entitled to do.

6.         Following changes in legislation, voluntary patients who were resident in a mental health institution but who were not liable to be detained there can now use a Declaration of Local Connection to give the hospital address as their qualifying address for registration purposes. Voluntary patients are therefore no longer categorised separately and have been absorbed into the main body of the electorate.

7.         Peers who sit in the House of Lords and citizens of the European Union (from outside the UK and the Irish Republic) cannot vote in UK parliamentary elections.

8.         Overseas electors are not resident in the United Kingdom, but must have been resident here and included in the electoral register within a period of 15 years of the qualifying date for the current register (or resident here and too young to be registered at the time of residence). They are registered in the same parliamentary constituency as before they went abroad or, if they were too young to register, in the constituency where their parent or guardian was registered. Overseas electors cannot vote in Local Government elections or Scottish Parliament elections but are entitled to vote in UK Parliamentary and European Parliamentary elections.

9.         All European Union citizens who are resident in Scotland and have registered to vote appear on the Local Government elections register.  However, only those who specifically request it are included on the register of European Parliament electors.  

10.       Excluding overseas electors, all of the groups listed in paragraph 3, as well as Peers and citizens of the European Union resident in Scotland are eligible to be registered for Local Government elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament.

11.       A illustration of voting eligibilities is given in Diagram 1 (PDF file 23 Kb)

PDF files require Acrobat Reader. Download Acrobat Reader free

12.       Scottish Westminster Constituencies were revised in 2005 as defined in the Parliamentary Constituencies (SCOTLAND) Order 2005.  This reduced the number of Scottish Westminster Constituencies from 72 to 59.  These are listed in Table 2. 

13.       There are 73 Constituencies represented in the Scottish Parliament and these Constituencies are distributed amongst 8 Regions.  These are all detailed in Table 4 and Table 5.

14.       In 2006, Electoral Ward boundaries were substantially revised under new Electoral Arrangements Orders (2006) for each of the 32 Council areas in Scotland.  This resulted in the creation of 353 Multi-Member Wards in Scotland, which are detailed in Table 6.

Further information 

For further information on electoral statistics in Scotland, please contact Statistics Customer Services using our Contact Form.

For further information about electoral registration arrangements in Scotland please contact the Scotland Office. Their contact details can be found at the Scotland Office website.