Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Not registered to vote yet? It's not too late.
Most people register or re-register between August and November every year, when the local council delivers a registration form to your home. This is called the 'annual canvass'.
During the rest of the year (from December to mid-August), there are monthly updates to the electoral register, known as 'rolling registration'. This is useful if you've just moved into the area or to a new house.
If you are eligible to vote, you can register at any time by filling in a registration form and sending it to your local electoral registration office, which is at your local council office.
You are not automatically registered to vote, even if you pay Council Tax. Electoral registration is a separate process from Council Tax registration. If you're not sure whether you're registered to vote, your local electoral registration office can tell you.
You can get a form from the council website which also has a handy table to let you know when you will be registered e.g. get your form in by 10th March and you will be registered by 1st April.
If you think you will need a proxy or postal vote, you can now apply for an absent vote up to six working days before an election. Forms for this are available from this page on the council website
For more info you can also
- Email: elections@haringey.gov.uk
- Telephone: 020 8489 2951
- Write: PO Box 264, Civic Centre, High Road, London N22 8LE
- Visit: The Electoral Register Office is at The Civic Centre, Wood Green High Road. Opening times are Mon-Fri 8.45 am to 5 pm
Links:
- Register for a vote :Haringey Council voting page
- Proxy or postal vote forms from the Haringey council website
- Registering to vote Direct Gov
- About my vote from the Electoral Commission
- A quick and easy guide to voting
- An animated guide for first time voters
- Some FAQs (and myths) about voting
Tags for Forum Posts: 2010 local election, voting.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Useful post Liz.
So it seems like the registration deadline for the local elections is April 12th.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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To be certain of a vote, yes.
You need to be registered more than 11 days before an election is due to be held.
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The 11 days info comes from my trusty copy of the Haringey People and may refer to recent changes in the law re when you can register to vote. Basically, if you are reading this after 12th April, it may be a good idea to contact the Electoral office to see if you can still register. The website also says:
"There are special rules about names being added to the voters list during an election period. Because of these you may not be able to vote at the election if you are added during this time" but doesn't explain what these rules are.
Maybe someone knows?
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Permalink Reply by Mark Pack on
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That's pretty much right. The dates on the council website are the normal registration deadlines through the year, assuming no election.
However, there is a special provision if an election is called which means people then have a few days still to register to vote, regardless of the original deadlines (hence your 11 days).
What's unhelpful about the Haringey Council page is that:
(a) The footnote about elections suggests it's harder to get on the register if there's an election; actually it's the opposite
(b) Although we don't know for sure when the general election will be, we do know when the local council elections will be (as that date is fixed in law) so a more useful table would have included the special election period deadline too
Mind you, Haringey is by no means the only one to make electoral registration information confusing. My favourite example is from back in 2001 when the Home Office (as was) got its own official advice on how to implement the electoral registration law it had just got through Parliament wrong :-)
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Thanks Mark for clarifying this.
It was very hard to make sense of the information on the council website/in the council mag.
There are some good simple guides being written by various organisations now. I linked to one above, but none of them mentioned these special rules when an election is called, information which is surely important as most people don't think about their eligibility to vote until the prospect of an election.
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Permalink Reply by Katey on
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I sent an email to Haringey electoral services dept asking when the deadline was for people to register by in order to be able to vote in the local elections on May 6th, as it also seemed unclear to me from the council's website. I received the following back in an email from them on the 11th Feb, and so assume this information is correct
...'The deadline is 20th April 2010, 5.00pm'
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