Gower () is a

constituency An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

of the

Senedd The Senedd ( ; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, Its role is to scrutinise the Welsh Government and legislate on devolve ...

. It elects one

Member of the Senedd A member of the Senedd (MS; plural: ''MSs''; ; , plural: ) is a representative elected to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ). There are sixty members, with forty members chosen to represent individual Senedd constituency, Senedd constituencies, a ...

by the

first past the post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

method of election. It is also 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 any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

for the region as a whole.

History

The constituency has elected a Labour member since the assembly was created in 1999. However in 2007 and 2016 the party won narrow majorities. The AM from 1999 to 2016

Edwina Hart Edwina Hart, MBE (born 26 April 1957) is a Welsh LabourAssem ...

was Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science from 2011 to 2016.

Boundaries

The constituency was created for the first election to the Assembly, in 1999, with the name and boundaries of the Gower Westminster constituency. It is entirely within the preserved county of

West Glamorgan West Glamorgan () is a former administrative county in South Wales. It is now a preserved county. West Glamorgan was one of the divisions of the ancient county of Glamorgan. It was created on 1 April 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972 fr ...

. The other six constituencies of the region are

Aberavon Aberavon () is a town and community in Neath Port Talbot county borough, Wales. The town derived its name from being near the mouth of the river Afan, which also gave its name to a medieval lordship. Today it is essentially a district of Por ...

Bridgend Bridgend (; or just , meaning "the end of the bridge on the Ogmore") is a town in the Bridgend County Borough of Wales, west of Cardiff and east of Swansea. The town is named after the Old Bridge, Bridgend, medieval bridge over the River Og ...

Neath Neath (; ) is a market town and Community (Wales), community situated in the Neath Port Talbot, 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 19,2 ...

, Ogmore, Swansea East and Swansea West.

Voting

In general elections for the

, each voter has two votes. The first vote may be used to vote for a candidate to become the

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 vote for only 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 an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...

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

Members of the Senedd

Elections

Elections in the 2020s

Regional Ballot void votes: 182. Want of an Official Mark (0), Voting for more than ONE party or individual candidate (48), Writing or mark by which the Voter could be identified (1), Unmarked or Void for uncertainty (133)

Elections in the 2010s

Regional ballots rejected: 188

Elections in the 2000s

2003 Electorate: 60,523
Regional ballots rejected: 335

Elections in the 1990s

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gower (Senedd constituency) Senedd constituencies in the South Wales West electoral region Politics of Swansea 1999 establishments in Wales Constituencies established in 1999