Who is a parliamentary elector

To vote in a local authority election you must be —. For information about how to enrol as a ratepayer elector, contact the electoral officer for the council where you own property.

Leading up to elections, the chief executive of a council must prepare a pre-election report. Under booth voting people cast their votes at polling booths, in the same way as at parliamentary elections.

In , all local elections were held using postal voting and have been since , with the exception of one council in Regional council members are elected from constituencies geographic subdivisions of the region. For 1 December , data was collected on both the old and the new constituency boundaries for England and Northern Ireland that came into effect at the General Election in May From 1 December onwards, data was only collected on the new boundaries.

The new parliamentary constituency boundaries for Wales came into effect at the ordinary election to the Assembly on 3 May The 'unformatted' data table contains the same information as presented in Tables 1 and 2, but in a simple format that can be easily analysed or imported into statistical software.

Annual electoral statistics are available from the ONS website from onwards. However, this is not a consistent time-series due to boundary changes in both parliamentary constituencies and local government areas that have taken place since that date. Annual electoral statistics usually have a reference date of 1 December each year, which reflects the publication date of electoral registers in the UK. Electoral statistics for in England and Wales excluding London had a reference date of 16 October.

Electoral statistics for had a reference date of 17 February in England and 10 March in Wales and Scotland. Owing to the Police and Crime Commissioners PCC elections for England and Wales held in November , the annual voter canvass was conducted early and new electoral registers published on 16 October , rather than 1 December This change was to ensure that the electoral register was as complete and accurate as possible prior to the elections.

To make sure that the electoral register was as complete and accurate as possible ahead of the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration IER in summer , the annual publication of electoral registers in Great Britain, normally due on 1 December , was delayed until spring Electoral registers were published on 17 February in England and on 10 March in Scotland and Wales.

Registers for Northern Ireland were published as usual on 1 December Scottish electoral registers were published in March due to the introduction of the new Individual Electoral Registration IER system being delayed until after the conclusion of the Scottish Independence Referendum in September Electoral statistics are not available broken down by age, sex, citizenship or any other characteristics.

These are individuals who are entitled to vote in parliamentary elections for Westminster and who meet the residence qualification. These are individuals who are entitled to vote in European and local government elections and who meet the residence qualification. This is the term used to describe a person who attains the age of 18 during the currency of the register i.

It should be noted that because of differing administrative practices, it is possible that the statistics for attainers may include some people who attain the age of 18 outside of the specified period. These are individuals who are nationals of any country within the Commonwealth of Nations. Only qualifying Commonwealth citizens are entitled to vote in UK elections; these are individuals who do not require leave to remain in the UK, or currently have valid leave to remain.

For England, Wales and Scotland, the residence qualification requires a person to be normally living at the address on the qualifying date, even if temporarily absent. People having more than one place of residence, such as students, may therefore be included on more than one register but are only entitled to vote in one constituency in a general election. Overseas electors are not resident in the UK but must previously have been resident in the UK and included on the electoral register unless they were too young to register within the last 15 years.

These are members of HM Armed Forces and their spouses, plus Crown servants and British Council employees and their spouses residing abroad. British citizens, Commonwealth citizens and citizens of the Republic of Ireland aged 18 or over are eligible to vote in any election if they also meet all other qualifying requirements. Full details on eligibility to vote are available from the electoral statistics methods guide Electoral statistics for England and Wales are compiled from information provided by local electoral registration officers by the Office for National Statistics ONS.

It replaced the former system of household level registration — where one person in the household returned a registration form on behalf of all eligible voters resident at that address — from June in England and Wales, and September in Scotland.

The electoral registration system in Northern Ireland remained unchanged. The introduction of IER allows individuals more control over the registration process and increases accuracy by ensuring that the identity of every applicant is verified using information such as date of birth and National Insurance number before their details are added to the electoral register.

The Electoral Commission are monitoring the transition to IER, conducting research on voter registration, and providing information and guidance to both electoral registration officers and the general public.

A person is entitled to vote as an elector at a local government election in any electoral area if on the date of the poll they are:. A person is entitled to be registered in the register of parliamentary electors for any constituency or part of a constituency if on the relevant date they are:. A person is entitled to be registered in the register of local government electors for any electoral area if on the relevant date they are:.

If your name is not on the electoral register and you think it should be, you can register online or call us on to request a paper application form.