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Tuesday 13 September 2016 12:11 pm

The UK’s EU referendum was the biggest nationwide vote since John Major was elected in 1992

By: Mark Sands

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June's Brexit referendum saw a higher turnout than any UK-wide vote for more than 20 years, the Electoral Commission has revealed.

The figures confirmed that a massive 72.2 per cent of voters showed up to vote on 23 June, with almost 26.3m votes cast at polling stations.

It means the referendum dwarfed every election since John Major's victory for the Conservatives in 1992.

The only vote to have seen a bigger turnout since then was the Scottish Independence referendum in 2014, which recorded 84.6 per cent.

The summer's referendum also saw over 18.5m postal votes issued, almost 18.4 per cent of the total UK electorate, representing the highest proportion since the introduction of postal voting on demand in 2001.

The Electoral Commission also released details of its own public opinion research, which showed 77 per cent of voters were confident the vote was well-run, with 87 per cent saying they were generally satisfied with the process of registering to vote.

It comes after the Commission was forced to extend the deadlines for registration after its website collapsed in the build up to the vote.

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