Voting by post or proxy

Thu, 16/02/2012 - 13:26 — administrator

Council

Postal Voting

If you want to vote by post you must give the full address to which your ballot paper should be sent. This can either be your current registered address or an alternative address if you are going to be away during the election period. Whilst this address can be anywhere worldwide, the tight timescale under which elections are run does not always leave enough time for postal ballot papers to be delivered, completed and returned if the delivery address is outside of the EU.

Please ensure that you have completed the date of birth field and that the form is signed and dated before returning the address below.

Proxy Voting

If you apply to vote by proxy and your application is accepted, the person you want to vote on your behalf (your proxy) will receive a 'proxy paper' which allows them to vote for you at your polling station on election day.

If you want to appoint a proxy to vote for you, they must be:

willing to vote on your behalf
a British citizen or citizen of the Commonwealth or Republic of Ireland; or for local government and European Parliamentary elections, a citizen of the European Union
old enough to vote and legally allowed to vote

A proxy may not vote at the same election for more than two people unless they are a close relative (husband, wife, parent, grandparent, brother, sister or grandchild) of the people they are voting for. Your proxy does not necessarily have to sign the form. As long as you have consulted them and they have confirmed that they can and will be your proxy, only you need to sign the form.

If you require a proxy vote for one election only (for example if you will away on the date of the election) please complete the form Proxy Voting Form - single occassion.

In all cases please ensure you have completed the date of birth field and the form is signed and dated before it is returned to Electoral Services.

Absent Vote Signature Refresh - January 2012

Absent Voters (i.e. those who vote by post) are required to provide a signature and date of birth when they first apply.

When you are sent your postal vote for an election you are required to provide your signature and date of birth on a postal voting statement. These 'personal identifiers' are checked against those you provided on your original postal vote application form, to ensure that they match. This is to prevent someone else from using your vote. If they do not match, your vote cannot be counted. Your personal identifiers are always kept separate from your ballot paper, so no-one knows how you have voted.

An important part of these security measures is providing a fresh specimen signature every 5 years, since people's signatures and circumstances can change over time. The legislation requires the Electoral Registration Officer to carry out the first annual refresh of signatures by 31 January 2012 in order to ensure that the signatures for as many absent voters as possible are refreshed, producing as accurate a record as possible and potentially limiting the number of postal votes that are rejected due to mismatched identifiers.

This Absent Vote signature refresh exercise will be undertaken every January for those absent voters whose applications are 5 years old and, therefore, due to expire.

If you are one of the absent voters who receives a signature refresh form, please make sure you sign and return it promptly as public authorities are obligated to send reminders to anyone who does not respond.

If you have a disability which means that you either cannot provide a signature or sign in a consistent and distinctive way, please indicate this on the form and make sure the name and address of your helper is provided.

If you no longer want to vote by post you must respond by ticking the relevant box on the form and return it as soon as possible, in order to avoid any unnecessary reminders.

If you do not return the signature refresh form by the deadline your existing absent vote facility will be cancelled and you will have to vote in person or make a new application.