Police and Crime Commissioner Elections: 2016

On Thursday 5 May 2016 the second cycle of elections (2012 being the first) for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) took place in England and Wales (excluding the Metropolitan Police, City of London and Greater Manchester). The 40 police areas each elected one PCC. The supplementary vote system was used for the elections.

• The elections were contested by 188 candidates; 40 Conservative, 40 Labour, 4 Plaid Cymru, 34 UKIP, 30 Liberal Democrat, 7 Green, 25 Independents and 8 “others”.

• There were 29 female candidates representing 15% of all candidates. This is a decrease of 3 percentage points on 2012 (includes Greater Manchester).

• 20 Conservative, 15 Labour, 2 Plaid Cymru, and 3 Independent candidates were elected. The number of female PCC candidates elected was 8 (20%), an increase of 2 (5 percentage points).

• Turnout averaged 26.6% across all 40 police areas (measured as valid first preference votes as a proportion of the electorate). This is an increase of 11.5 percentage points compared to 2012.

• Over 311,000 ballots were rejected in the first round of voting at the PCC elections (3.4% of total ballots). This is an increase of 0.6 of a percentage point from the 2012 election.