Aberavon (

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

: ''Aberafan'') is a constituency of the

Senedd The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English language, English and () in Welsh language, Welsh, is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes ...

. It elects one

Member of the Senedd A Member of the Senedd (MS; plural: ''MSs''; cy, Aelodau o'r Senedd; , plural:) (AS)., group=la is a representative elected to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ). There are sixty members, with forty members chosen to represent individual Senedd c ...

by the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

method of election. Also, however, it is one of seven constituencies in the South Wales West electoral region, which elects four additional members, in addition to seven constituency members, to produce a degree of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

for the region as a whole.

History

Having only elected Labour MSs with huge majority this can be considered a Labour

safe seat A safe seat is an electoral district (constituency) in a legislative body (e.g. Congress, Parliament, City Council) which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combinat ...

. Plaid Cymru are Labour's main opposition in the constituency and have been since its creation. Party averages from 5 elections: Labour – 54.9, Plaid Cymru – 18.4, Conservative – 9.3, Lib Dem – 8.6, UKIP stood for the first time in this constituency in the 2016 election and finished third with 15.0% of the vote.

Boundaries

The constituency was created for the first election to the Assembly, in 1999, with the name and boundaries of the Aberavon Westminster constituency, and it is entirely within the

preserved county The preserved counties of Wales are the eight current areas used in Wales for the ceremonial purposes of lieutenancy and shrievalty. They are based on the counties created by the Local Government Act 1972 and used for local government and other ...

West Glamorgan , HQ= County Hall, Swansea , Government= West Glamorgan County Council (abolished 1996) , Status= , Start= 1974 , End= 1996 , Arms= ''Coat of arms of W ...

. Boundaries were unchanged by the review whose proposals come into effect for the

2007 Welsh Assembly election The 2007 National Assembly for Wales election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the National Assembly for Wales. It was the third general election. On the same day local elections in England and Scotland, as well as the Scot ...

. The constituency is composed of the

Neath Port Talbot Neath Port Talbot ( cy, Castell-nedd Port Talbot) is a county borough in the south-west of Wales. Its principal towns are Neath, Port Talbot, Briton Ferry and Pontardawe. The county borough borders Bridgend County Borough and Rhondda Cynon Ta ...

electoral divisions: Aberavon, Baglan, Briton Ferry East, Briton Ferry West, Bryn & Cwmavon, Coedffranc Central, Coedffranc North, Coedffranc West, Cymmer, Glyncorrwg, Gwynfi, Margam, Port Talbot, Sandlands East, Sandlands West, and Tai-bach. The other six constituencies of the region are

Bridgend Bridgend (; cy, Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr or just , meaning "the end of the bridge on the Ogmore") is a town in Bridgend County Borough in Wales, west of Cardiff and east of Swansea. The town is named after the medieval bridge over the River Og ...

Gower Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingd ...

Neath Neath (; cy, Castell-nedd) is a market town and community situated in the Neath Port Talbot County Borough, Wales. The town had a population of 50,658 in 2011. The community of the parish of Neath had a population of 19,258 in 2011. Historica ...

, Ogmore, Swansea East and Swansea West.

Voting

In general elections for the Senedd, each voter has two votes. The first vote may be used to vote for a candidate to become the Member of the Senedd for the voter's constituency, elected by the first past the post system. The second vote may be used to vote for a regional

closed party list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some in ...

of candidates. Additional member seats are allocated from the lists by the

d'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highe ...

, with constituency results being taken into account in the allocation.

Assembly members and members of the Senedd

Elections

Elections in the 2020s

Regional Ballot void votes: 150. Want of an Official Mark (0), Voting for more than ONE party or individual candidate (38), Writing or mark by which the Voter could be identified (1), Unmarked or Void for uncertainty (111)

Elections in the 2010s

Regional ballots rejected at the count: 134

Elections in the 2000s

2003 Electorate: 50,208
Regional ballots rejected: 348

Elections in the 1990s

Notes

References

{{National Assembly for Wales Senedd constituencies in the South Wales West electoral region Politics of Glamorgan 1999 establishments in Wales Constituencies established in 1999