The turnout for this general election was the highest Southwark has seen for at least twenty years.
The average across the borough was 64 percent, with Dulwich having the highest number of voters at 68 per cent.
The higher than expected turnout led to queueing at some polling stations, but Southwark Council’s returning officer, Deborah Collins, said no one had to wait an “unreasonable” amount of time.
Liberal Democrat councillor Cllr Ben Johnson said one voter in his ward had to queue for 90 minutes, but Ms Collins said most people were “understanding” when stations were busy “as this indicated that voters were turning out to exercise their democratic right to vote.”
“It’s the nature of any election that polling stations will be busy at peak times, and we had a larger than expected turnout in Southwark, which inevitably led to some queues at busy times,” she added.
The council laid on extra staff this year after reports of long delays at the last election in 2005.
They also had emergency response polling station inspectors who could be sent to the busiest places as they were needed.
Bermondsey and Old Southwark climbed from a turnout of 57 percent at the 2005 election to 62 percent this year and Camberwell and Peckham went from 59 percent in 2005 to 64 percent this year.