Rochdale voters stay at home in Police Commissioner election

Polling Station

The election for the new Police and Crime Commissioner has completely failed to excite the borough’s electorate. A massive 77.9 of them decided to stay at home as the Polling Stations opened in the country’s first-ever PCC elections.

Polling Stations across the borough were largely silent and across the Greater Manchester area, the turnout was a disappointing 13.5% overall with only 12.1% of Rochdale voters participating. Only Wigan registered a lower level of participation at 11.3%.

Chris Terry, a research officer at the Electoral Reform Society, said: “Clearly this was completely avoidable. The awareness campaign was really poor.

“The election should never have been held in November, and as a result the lack of support for candidates was appalling.”

In Manchester, the election coincided with the Central Manchester by-election, caused by the resignation of former Labour MP Tony Lloyd who stood down so that he could put himself forward as a candidate for PCC. The seat was taken by Labour’s Lucy Powell with 11,507 votes. In second place, the Liberal Democrat candidate trailed well behind with 1,571 votes and the Conservative candidate, Matthew Sephton came third with 754 votes, losing his deposit in the process.

The turnout for the elections is believed to be the lowest since the Second World War and there are concerns that voter apathy could undermine the role of the new Police Commissioner.

There were five candidates standing in the election for the £100K per year post including former MP Tony Lloyd (Labour), former policeman Matt Gallagher (Lib Dem), Councillor Michael Winstanley (Conservative), barrister Steven Woolfe (UKIP), and magistrate Roy Warren (Independent).

Former Manchester Central MP Tony Lloyd won the election and is Greater Manchester's first police and crime commissioner (PCC).

Labour's Mr Lloyd beat four other candidates to win 51.2% of first preference votes.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/74642/police-commissioner-election-fails-to-excite-voters