Online registration for UK voters
The UK Electoral Commission has stepped up its efforts to encourage British citizens living overseas to register to vote ahead of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union.
The date of the referendum is not yet known but the Commission is advising UK expats to register as soon as possible here.
To register as an overseas voter, UK residents overseas must have previously been registered in a UK constituency within the last 15 years. Once registered, they can vote by post, by proxy or in person at their polling station.
“A lot of people aren’t aware that it’s possible to register as an overseas voter for certain UK polls – UK Parliamentary General Elections, European Parliamentary elections and the upcoming EU Referendum,” said Alex Robertson, director of communications at the Electoral Commission.
“Many people are eligible to vote and now it’s easier than ever to take the first step by going online.”
At the 2015 UK general election there were almost 106,000 overseas electors on the register, three times the number that were on the register ahead of the previous general election in 2010 but still a fraction of the 5.5 million UK citizens estimated to be living overseas.
