The 2003 Swindon Borough Council election took place on 1 May 2003 to elect members of Swindon Unitary Council in Wiltshire, England. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control.[1]
After the election, the composition of the council was
Conservative 29
Labour 22
Liberal Democrat 8[2]
Voting trial
Swindon was one of 3 councils which trialed voting by television in 2003 for the first time anywhere in the world.[3] Voters in Swindon also had 8 electronic information kiosks in the town centre where they could vote,[4] telephone and internet voting.[5] These trials, which were open for voting in the week before the election,[5] followed a trial of electronic voting in the 2002 election which saw turnout increase by 3.5%.[6]
Overall turnout in the election was 29.82%,[7] lower than in 2002.[8][9] However the number of electronic votes increased by 75% from 2002 to 11,055, including 349 cast by television.[8]
^"How Britain voted: English and Scottish councils". The Independent. 3 May 2003. pp. 18–19.
^"Britain: Pol idol; Television voting". The Economist. 26 April 2003. p. 29.
^"Text, e-mail, click...just vote, please". The Times. 29 April 2003. p. 4.
^ abMathieson, SA (1 May 2003). "Inside IT: X marks the spot: Today's local elections mark the biggest experiment so far in e-voting". The Guardian. p. 15.
^Parker, Simon (30 April 2003). "Society: Cross culture: The government is putting its faith in the potential of electronic voting to the test in tomorrow's local elections. But are indifference and disillusionment the real enemies of democracy?". The Guardian. p. 2.
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv"Swindon Borough Council Election Results 1 May 2003" (PDF). Political Science Resources. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 June 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2010.
^ ab"Life: Inside IT: News". The Guardian. 8 May 2003. p. 18.
^"West: Voting, which way now?". BBC News Online. 11 May 2003. Retrieved 29 October 2010.
^"Election results; English Councils; Local elections 2003". The Times. 2 May 2003. p. 16.