Scottish Voter Turnout

So, Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom. This morning on the bus (I should run a series called “Idle Data Analysis on the Bus”) I looked at how the high turnout compared to other Scottish elections. Data on turnout is easily available back to 1970. Here are two views of it.

You can get a [larger image](http://kieranhealy.org/files/misc/turnout.png) or a [PDF version of the figure](http://kieranhealy.org/files/misc/turnout.pdf) if you want a closer look at it.

As you can see, turnout for the Independence Referendum was both astonishingly high and way off-trend. In addition to the long-term decline in participation, there seems to be a hint of a discontinuity in turnout post-1997, maybe after the second Devolution referendum. (Perhaps those more knowledgeable about Scottish politics can say more.) And of course you can also see that nobody cares about European elections.