Electorate
The referendum analysis begins with the Electorate: who was allowed to vote and those who weren’t allowed. The electorate:
- Included: 46.5 million people entitled to vote in a UK parliamentary election:
- British citizens over 18, resident in UK
- Irish citizens over 18, resident in UK
- Maltese & Cypriots over 18, resident in UK
- Commonwealth-born citizens over 18, resident in UK
- Commonwealth citizens in Gibraltar over 18
- British expats, lived overseas for <15 years
- Irish citizens born in Northern Ireland, registered to vote there in the last 15 years
- Excluded: 4.6 million (1.6 million registered EU citizen voters, 1.5 million young voters, 1.5 million expatriates – could be higher)
- All other EU citizens resident in the UK who are allowed to vote in local elections – estimated at 1.6 million registered voters (which includes some Irish, Maltese and Cypriot citizens listed above).
- Young voters aged 16-18 (unlike the Scottish referendum of 2015) – estimated at 1.5 million voters based on ONS statistics.
- UK expatriates out of the country for 15 years or more. The Conservatives promised in their 2015 election manifesto to restore full voting rights to all expatriates, but had not done so at the time of the referendum. The government reiterated its intention to do so in February 2018.
- Government estimates that there are 5 million UK expatriates (but does not estimate how many have been overseas for 15 years or more).
- For the 1.2 million UK expatriates in the EU, an estimated 300,000 (25%) to 700,000 (58%) are 15-year expatriates.
- Applying the low end of this range (25%) to the 5 million indicates another 1.25 million voters.
As in every election, there were adults who were eligible to vote, but who did not register to vote. However, ONS does not collate data on this group.
Sources:
Cabinet Office, A democracy that works for everyone: British citizens overseas Policy Statement, October 2016
Office for National Statistics, Electoral statistics, UK: 2016
Result
33.6 million voted (72.2% of the registered electorate) and of those who voted (see Table A.1 and Figure A.1):
- 17.4 million (51.9% of those that voted) voted Leave
- 16.1 million (48.1%) voted Remain
- Leave majority was 1.3 milllion votes (2.7% of the electorate; 3.8% of those that voted)
Of the 46.5 million registered electorate (figure A.2):
- 37.4% voted Leave
- 34.7% voted Remain
- 12.9 million (27.8%) did not vote
Table A.1: Referendum result in 2016
Figure A.1: Referendum result – those who voted
Figure A.2: Referendum result – including voters who did not vote
Source: Electoral Commission, EU referendum result
Abstentions
The majority of the 12.9 million voters who abstained (i.e did not vote) in June 2016 would have backed Remain if they had voted.
- Subsequent 2016 polls of abstainers showed the majority supported Remain by a greater margin than those who had voted (see Figure A.3).
- Undecideds ranged from 21% to 42% of this group (ignoring one outlier poll).
- Assuming that abstainers had voted but that 40% were still undecided, a Remain vote in this group of only 35% (Leave vote 25%) would have eliminated the Leave majority in the referendum.
- Four of the five polls (ignoring the outlier) resulted in a Remain percentage greater than 35% of between 38% and 55% (with Leave between 20% and 24%).
Subsequent Brexit opinion polls sometimes include this group.
Figure A.3: Polls of those that did not vote
Source: Business Insider, Brits who didn’t vote in the EU referendum now wish they voted against Brexit, 23 September 2016
Comparison: 2016 vs 1975
:The comparison of the 2016 referendum result with the 1975 referendum result is interesting (Table A.2)
- In 2016 and 1975, the winning number of votes was virtually the same at 17.4 million (rounded)
- Majority in 1975 was 34.4% compared to only 3.8% in 2016. As a result, the 1975 democratic mandate was much stronger than the 2016 mandate.
- Turnout in 2016 (72.2%) was higher than 1975 (64.6%). However, since 1975, the highest turnout (77.7%).was in 1992 for the General Election.
Table A.2: 2016 referendum result compared with 1975
