Turnout at Holyrood election could be in 'low to mid 50s', says expert

Turnout at next month's Holyrood election could be substantially down on the last vote in 2021, an expert has said.

Ailsa Henderson, a professor of political science at Edinburgh University, said the evidence suggested the percentage of people turning out to cast their vote on May 7 could be in the "low to mid 50s".

That compares to 63.5 per cent in 2021, although this was the highest turnout in the history of devolution and could be partly attributed to the Covid pandemic.

The Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh | PA

In 2016, turnout was 55.6 per cent, and in 2011 it was 50.4 per cent. The lowest turnout was 49.4 per cent at the 2003 election.

"We need to be conscious of turnout, for example," Prof Henderson told BBC Scotland's Sunday Show. "We know that in a tight election turnout tends to go up, so we wouldn't necessarily expect this election to have higher turnout than in 2021.

"If we want to look at turnout, we ask people how likely they are to vote on a zero to 10 scale. And if we look at the people who are saying 10/10, I'm likely to vote, we're down around nine or 10 points on 2021.

"And all of that suggests that we could be looking at turnout that's in the low to mid 50s in this election, and that's important because different supporters are more likely to turn out in a low turnout election.

"Any party relying on older voters will probably be more secure in their vote share if it's a low turnout election.”

There are widespread concerns within Scotland’s political parties about the unpredictable impact of low voter turnout next month. Activists talk of the "scunner factor", with voters openly disillusioned with politics.

Prof Henderson said the Scottish electorate “has rather a lot of late deciders”.

She said: “We know that in 2021, a third of the electorate decided in the last couple of days how they were going to cast their ballot, and in fact 10 per cent decided on the day itself how they were going to vote.”

The expert continued: “There’s still movement to come, I would say, between the polls and the result.”