Any day now, an email will drop into your inbox or one of those old fashioned letters will drop through your letterbox. It will invite you to renew your voter registration for local and national elections. If you don’t renew, you will lose your vote.
First time voters can also register. You must be 16 years old to register but you can’t vote in England until you are 18.
It is also time to think about getting a postal vote. No one can predict how fit we will be, what our personal circumstances may me or what the weather will be like on an election day.
The next Shropshire Council and parish and town council elections are not until May 2025. There could be by-elections before that date if councillors step aside. The next general election is due in May 2023 but in national politics, who knows when an election will occur. Especially as the government has tabled legislation which aims to abolish the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. (The new bill limits the term of any parliament to five years.)
Back in the olden days, we reregistered to vote only every now and again, usually when we moved house. But for the last seven years, we have had to reregister every year. We must also register individually not on a single household form. Every year, people drop off the electoral accidently by not returning the forms. Some face a last minute rush to reregister and some miss the deadline.
Many people will have indicated that they want to receive an email reminder to reregister, rather than a postal application. If you are on email, and most of us are, it is the easiest way of completing the application. The email will contain a two-part security code and a link to a secure registration website.
Shropshire Council is encouraging voters to complete the registration process by 17 August. Those that do not have online access can contact the council 0345 678 9015.
I am sure I don’t need to tell the audience of this blog that voting matters. If people don’t vote, they get the politicians they deserve. Okay. People vote and sometimes they get the politicians they don’t deserve. But that is politics.