SINGAPORE: On Sunday (May 4), the Elections Department (ELD) issued a statement regarding voter turnout during the previous day.
“At the close of polls for the Singapore General Election 2025, a total of 2,429,281 votes were cast in Singapore (inclusive of 42,829 rejected votes). This made up 92.47% of the 2,627,026 registered electors in all contested electoral divisions,” reads the statement from the ELD, which is under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Office.
News outlets have noted that this is a record-low voter turnout. In 2020, in spite of the General Election (GE) being held amid the Covid-19 pandemic when restrictions were in place, the voter turnout was 95.81%. For the past two GEs, it was higher than 93% — 93.56% in 2015, and 93.18% in 2011.
In light of this, some commenters online have posted questions.
Facebook user Kris, who is behind the Just An Ok Dad page, wrote, “In 2020, there were 2,651,435 registered voters. Of those, 2,535,565 voted—a turnout of 95.54%.
“In 2025, voter rolls grew to 2,758,858, but only 2,429,281 cast their votes—92.47% turnout. More voters, fewer turning up. Was it the long weekend? Or are we seeing a rise in apathy?”
When the schedule for GE2025 was announced, some commenters online expressed disappointment that they may not be able to vote, since Polling Day came right in the middle of a long weekend, and they had already made travel plans and would be out of the country.
“How many eligible Singaporean voters were travelling on 3 May?” asked Wake Up Singapore, which also shared insights from the digital magazine Jom.
Jom called the low voter turnout “unsurprising, perhaps, given the short notice period for a vote over a long weekend”.
It added, “In at least two districts—Jalan Kayu SMC (Single Member Constituency) and Tampines GRC (Group Representation Contituency)—the number of non-voters was significantly larger than the PAP’s (People’s Action Party) winning margin. Would it have made a difference? We’ll never know.”
At Jalan Kayu SMC, the results were 51.4% to 48.6%, and in Tampines GRC, it was 52% to 48%, both in favor of the ruling PAP.
“Could it be that many younger voters were overseas during polling day, and as a result were not able to vote for their party of choice? Thus, perhaps contributing to WP (Worker’s Party) losing in Tampines and Punggol by narrow margins?” asked one Facebook user.
Another chimed in with, “Booked trip to Hanoi, would have voted for WP in Tampines GRC. Sadly, can’t vote and (now have) the extra work of restoring my name to register for the next election.”
One Reddit user wrote, “WP losing by 5.5k votes in Tampines and 9k peeps who didn’t cast their vote will forever haunt me. Biggest what-ifs.” /TISG
Read also: ‘There goes my long weekend,’ S’poreans react to Voting Day on May 3