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5 Feb 2015

Registering to vote is easy – this is what you do

The Electoral Commission says 30 per cent of people aged 18-24 have not yet registered to vote. But registering only takes a few minutes – so here’s our simple guide.

Union jack ballot box (Getty Images)

This year’s general election is on 7 May. If you want to vote, you need to have registered by 20 April. This is what you need to do –

How to register

You can register online (to do so, click here) or by post (to download a form, click here).

You have to provide –

  • name
  • date of birth
  • national insurance number
  • address
  • email address

    Who can register?

    • British citizens aged 16 or over
    • Irish, Commonwealth or EU citizens resident in the UK

    So who can vote?

    Just because you’ve registered to vote, it doesn’t mean you’re eligible to vote on 7 May. To vote, you have to be –

    • 18 or over on polling day
    • a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Irish Republic
    • not subject to any legal incapacity to vote

    And another thing

    • there are separate registration forms for public servants posted overseas
    • you register using a different form if you live in Northern Ireland
    • in previous elections, the head of a household was responsible for registering everyone at an address. From 2015 people register individually

    Topics

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