Local elections 2026: voter turnout highest since 2010

Composition of Hackney Council before 2026 elections

The election results for Hackney council seats are to be announced soon.

Voter turnout for mayoral contest was 40.98 percent – the highest since 2010, when the local elections at the same time as a general election.

Turnout 2002 – 2026

Turnout across wards was also high, as the graph below shows:

Hackney turnout by ward 2002 and 2026

The last full council elections were held in 2022, when turnout was 34.3 per cent.

The intervening period has been a turbulent time in Hackney electoral politics with eight council by-elections (up from three in the 2018-2022 period), and a mayoral by-election in 2023 prompted by the resignation of Mayor Philip Glanville following an integrity scandal.

This year’s election is noteworthy for the fact that only 34 of the 50 Labour councillors originally elected in 2022 having stood again. Five others are standing again but for different parties – three for the Hackney Independent Socialist Collective, one for the Greens and one as an independent.

The composition of the council when it was dissolved that month was 43 Labour, 6 Conservative, 4 Green, 3 Hackney Independent Socialist Collective and one independent, Labour having lost seven of its 50 seats to defections and by-election defeats.

As several opinion polls had accurately predicted that the Greens’ candidate Zoë Garbett would win the mayoral election and that the Greens might potentially take control of the council, this has been one of the most keenly-watched races this year.

An upset in council control by the Greens would be quite a feat.

The Labour party has controlled the local authority since 1971, save for a brief period between 1998 and 2002 when the party itself had split into factions.

Prior to Zoë Garbett’s victory for the Green party in this year’s mayoral election, Labour had won all of the mayoral competitions since this directly-elected post was introduced in 2002.