Register To Vote Day: Don’t lose your vote because you’ve moved house

Tens of thousands of recent home movers will be unable to vote in local elections taking place on May 3, say the Electoral Commission, because they will not have registered to vote at their new property before the April 18 deadline.

The research from the independent elections watchdog shows that only 14% of people who moved house in autumn 2010 after the annual canvass were registered to vote at their new property in April 2011. If that is repeated this year, it will mean many people missing out on voting in local elections taking place in much of England, across Scotland and Wales as well as in the Mayor of London elections. Among their findings are:

* Around one in three people wrongly believe that by paying council tax they are automatically registered to vote and are on the electoral register
* 56% of people living in private rented homes are registered, compared with 88% for homeowners (those that had lived in their property between two and five years).
* Younger people in London are much more likely not to be on the electoral register (56% of 19 – 24 year olds are registered to vote, compared to 94% of 65+).

Facebook is taking part in the Electoral Commission’s campaign (“It’s Your Vote, Don’t Lose It”), using their ‘Democracy UK’ page to encourage Facebook users to fill in a registration form and to pass the message on via wall posts and status updates.

“Today is Register to Vote Day across Britain,” says Samantha Mills of the Electoral Commission, pictured left with a large registration form, “when we’re launching a campaign asking everyone to take five minutes to check they will be able to have their say at next month’s elections. Now is the time to act – and to pass the message on to others!”

Go to www.aboutmyvote.co.uk to print off and complete a registration form.

Useful web sites for more information

• Independent Property Search Engine
• Independent House & Home section

Recent Posts on Property

• It's National Work From Home Day today
• Where have property prices been reduced most in the UK?
• Is Rushcliffe the best place for families to live?
• Where are the most affordable towns for key workers?
• Rents around London's nicest parks

• TheOnlyWayIsNorfolk

  Voting is for the rich.

• Pacificweather

  70% of votes have no effect. Why waste shoe leather.

• Lugubert

  The pessimism (“voting is for the rich”; “70% of votes have no effect”) is the result of the unfair voting system. In Britain, as I understand the system of returning one single MP for each constituency, a party might get 49% of all votes in every constituency and still end up without a single MP. In Sweden, they’d get their righteous parliamentary share of 49%.

  Also, the registration business is problematic. For both issues, compare for example a technologically more advanced country like Sweden. Very few people there have to worry about being entitled to vote or not. The world’s oldest census system, continuously refined, automatically issues voter cards well ahead of voting
  days, so if by a certain well publicized day you have no card, you know that you have to act.

  Thus, far fewer votes are “wasted” in Sweden, and so voters will be more inclined to vote, even if they for example go socialist in a very conservative area. Their votes will still count for the regional or national outcome even if they drown in the locally opposing number.