Too many UK expats are still not #ReferendumReady

[webfact]

Too many UK expats are still not #ReferendumReady

A survey of UK citizens living overseas carried out by the UK Electoral Commission has found that half of respondents don’t know that they can now register online to vote in the UK.

To make sure that British expats are #ReferendumReady, the elections watchdog is reminding them that it’s possible to apply in just a few minutes at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote. Before online registration became available in 2014, applicants had to complete a paper application and post it back to their local electoral office. It is now possible to complete an application online in five minutes with just your National Insurance number and passport to hand, which also removes the need for overseas voters to provide an attestation when these details are provided.

To register as an overseas voter, UK residents overseas must have previously been registered in a UK constituency within the last 15 years. Anyone who is unsure if they are registered to vote should contact their last UK local authority to check their status.

The Commission is calling on expats to register to vote by 16 May if they want to vote by post in the EU Referendum. This is so they have enough time to receive and return their postal ballot. They don’t even need to wait for their registration to be confirmed before choosing how they wish to vote. Expats can vote by post, by proxy (voting by appointing someone you trust to vote on your behalf), or even in person at their polling station if they will be in their local authority area on polling day.

It should be easier to vote by post for this referendum as postal votes will be sent out earlier than usual, giving overseas voters further time to receive, complete, and return their ballot pack to the UK. However anyone who doesn’t think they can return postal vote papers in time or is applying after 16 May should consider voting by proxy.

The Commission’s survey of UK expats was aimed at gaining an understanding of their knowledge of and attitude towards their voting rights but was not designed to be representative of the estimated 5.5 million UK citizens living overseas.

At the 2015 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 and the highest number of overseas voters registered ever.

To register to vote, UK citizens should visit https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

[evadgib]

I suspect the ballot paper fiasco last year has put many eligible voters residing outside the EU off.

[topt]

I suspect the ballot paper fiasco last year has put many eligible voters residing outside the EU off.

Could have done with this item several weeks ago. Now there is probably insufficient time to vote by post. From trying to complete the online details -

"To vote by post in the EU referendum on the 23 June, your postal vote application must reach your local Electoral Registration Office by 5pm on Wednesday 8 June."

Curious how long it would take them to send the forms out - not curious enough to go through with the registration however

Too tight to be certain.

[Deserted]

The old trick used to be that you could vote but you could not choose the constituency, and there are many in Thailand who would rather not give their personal details to the British government.

[schondie]

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling a little suspicious about our government. I trust none of them, regardless of their political hue.

I'll register as I may have a chance of getting my vote in before the closing date.

Regardless of how it plays out, that smarmy bar steward Cameron will lose his job I hope.

[eliotness]

I believe the UK government is gambling that so many British expats live in Europe that their vote will be to stay in the EU. We Brits that live in Thailand are of no consequence to the British government, e.g. just check the "services" offered by the Embassy in Bangkok.

[NoBrainer]

I would suspect that most of the punters that were smart enough to get out of the UK, couldn't really care what happens over there any more anyway.

Couldn't get much worse no matter which way the vote goes.

I was in Knightsbridge a few years back and it was hard to find any English people left there.

[MartinL]

Curious how long it would take them to send the forms out - not curious enough to go through with the registration however

Too tight to be certain.

I'm registered for a postal vote and my Electoral Office in UK have told me that postal ballot papers will be sent to overseas voters on 23 - 27 May. My experience with post to/from UK tells me there'll be enough time to receive & return the papers.

Don't trust 'them' not to fiddle the result to get a REMAIN vote, though .

[Nomad56]

I suspect the ballot paper fiasco last year has put many eligible voters residing outside the EU off.

Could have done with this item several weeks ago. Now there is probably insufficient time to vote by post. From trying to complete the online details -

"To vote by post in the EU referendum on the 23 June, your postal vote application must reach your local Electoral Registration Office by 5pm on Wednesday 8 June."

Curious how long it would take them to send the forms out - not curious enough to go through with the registration however

Too tight to be certain.

topt: if you follow the link you will find the process is amazingly simple and that they will send you a proxy form by email - which you then have to post back, but there is plenty of time for that!

If you want to vote by post, rather than by proxy, they will be sending the forms out much earlier than in previous years so that there will be time for expats to vote by post.

[Jonathon]

Voting by post is nigh on impossible from here; might just manage it if you want to splash out on DHL etc. to return it. Maybe just time to arrange a proxy vote.

[steve187]

the registering process is quite easy,

[lungbing]

I don't doubt for a minute than any postal vote from us out here that votes "out" will be counted as arriving too late.

[MikeOwen]

If you think they're going to let the UK leave the EU , votes, for or against , you need psychiatric help !

[brewsterbudgen]

My overseas proxy vote is in. At least there'll be one vote to remain IN!

[Orac]

I suspect the ballot paper fiasco last year has put many eligible voters residing outside the EU off.

Could have done with this item several weeks ago. Now there is probably insufficient time to vote by post. From trying to complete the online details -

"To vote by post in the EU referendum on the 23 June, your postal vote application must reach your local Electoral Registration Office by 5pm on Wednesday 8 June."

Curious how long it would take them to send the forms out - not curious enough to go through with the registration however

Too tight to be certain.

topt: if you follow the link you will find the process is amazingly simple and that they will send you a proxy form by email - which you then have to post back, but there is plenty of time for that!

If you want to vote by post, rather than by proxy, they will be sending the forms out much earlier than in previous years so that there will be time for expats to vote by post.

The proxy form can be scanned and emailed back to the voter registration office for where you were last registered to vote. After completing the very easy online registration i received a standard email then, next working day had a more personal email from my old local govt office. Sent him the scanned proxy form and he confirmed next day i was registered along with a letter sent to my nominated proxy.

[topt]

Curious how long it would take them to send the forms out - not curious enough to go through with the registration however

Too tight to be certain.

I'm registered for a postal vote and my Electoral Office in UK have told me that postal ballot papers will be sent to overseas voters on 23 - 27 May. My experience with post to/from UK tells me there'll be enough time to receive & return the papers.

Don't trust 'them' not to fiddle the result to get a REMAIN vote, though .

Voting by post is nigh on impossible from here; might just manage it if you want to splash out on DHL etc. to return it. Maybe just time to arrange a proxy vote.

This was my point.

MartinL post sometimes takes 2-3 weeks to hit me from the UK and you then have to send it back - the online form says it has to be received by 8th June. By my reckoning even if they send on the 23rd (the earliest date you mention) that only gives you 16 days or so.

[topt]

I suspect the ballot paper fiasco last year has put many eligible voters residing outside the EU off.

Could have done with this item several weeks ago. Now there is probably insufficient time to vote by post. From trying to complete the online details -

"To vote by post in the EU referendum on the 23 June, your postal vote application must reach your local Electoral Registration Office by 5pm on Wednesday 8 June."

Curious how long it would take them to send the forms out - not curious enough to go through with the registration however

Too tight to be certain.

topt: if you follow the link you will find the process is amazingly simple and that they will send you a proxy form by email - which you then have to post back, but there is plenty of time for that!

If you want to vote by post, rather than by proxy, they will be sending the forms out much earlier than in previous years so that there will be time for expats to vote by post.

The proxy form can be scanned and emailed back to the voter registration office for where you were last registered to vote. After completing the very easy online registration i received a standard email then, next working day had a more personal email from my old local govt office. Sent him the scanned proxy form and he confirmed next day i was registered along with a letter sent to my nominated proxy.

I agree the online system is very straightforward but unfortunately I do not want to put the onus on anybody else to have to act as my proxy.

[Dene16]

I would suspect that most of the punters that were smart enough to get out of the UK, couldn't really care what happens over there any more anyway.

Couldn't get much worse no matter which way the vote goes.

I was in Knightsbridge a few years back and it was hard to find any English people left there.

One suburb in Southampton (Shirley) has become a polish ghetto

A local police station sergeant stated that his cells were full every weekend with polish drunk drivers

A school next to my mothers has had to have new classrooms built to cater for the influx of polish children

when i went to London to get my O-A visa nearly every building that i passed having work done was being carried out by foreign workers

Apparently Slough is a ghetto for Romanian immigrants

The UK may not be great but whether you like it or not, at sometime you may be forced to return, it is home to your siblings

one third of all babies born in the UK are not of UK nationality

Schools and hospitals cannot cope

The list can go on and on and on but something has to be done now.

Unfortunately leaving the EU seems to be our only option as they have offered us nothing to halt our demise

[Mexlark]

After 12 years out of the UK you lose your vote anyway. And it is then very difficult to get it back.

The EC people are NOT in the least bit helpful, because civil servants these days are usually rather pro-establishment government-supporting jobsworths. The funny thing is that six years ago they sent me a postal vote. It arrived here the day after the general election, by which time I was already in the UK on holiday. (Not that it is possible to regain your vote by short-term residence anyway. If you go to a registration office in person they will only allow you to talk to a registrar by telephone from the reception desk. You must be resident they say, even if you are staying in the ancestral home - but they will then avoid defining 'resident'.) So my postal vote arrived too late, and when I pointed it out to them, they checked the details and told me it had been sent in error to me anyway, as in 2010 I had already been out of the country for longer than 12 years. They implied that a head was rolling because of this error. They implied that the office in question was under investigation. And I have since noted from a regional newspaper report that this particular office rather suspiciously lost a very high number of registered expat and other voters just before the last election. And when I reported this to the local MP, he told me that he had known about it and had probably lost quite a few votes because of it. In 2015, I was again back in the UK again quite a few days before the election, and made a token gesture of trying to register at an actual office on the strength of residence in the ancestral shack. I got the usual phone from the reception desk fob-off and a pleasant but completely useless election official who could not define residence.

Much in the same manner as Jeb Bush, I'm pretty certain that the current UK establishment is engaged in a long-term game of playing with constituency boundaries and their electorate in order to favor the Nasty Party.

I suppose you might say I'm still vaguely a pro-EC, although it is certainly not at all an accountable organisation to the electorate in its current form. I can certainly sympathise with the exit folks. But I will say this. Almost regardless of whether we stay in or leave, we are still going to see a declining industrial base, more remote decision-making, an ever-widening gap between top and bottom, and further mass unemployment. The current establishment of the UK will continue going its own sweet undemocratic way with absolutely no desire to do anything other than bail out the already rich. It almost is a completely wasted vote. If I could vote, I think I would be looking into the best and most blatant way of spoiling the ballot paper in such a way that it is completely clear that I have complete distain for the current political mob regardless of whether they want in or out. Or just not voting at all, and making it blatantly obvious why. Neither side is ever again likely to do me any favours, but they are very likely to keep on lining their pockets at our expense.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Mexlark

[billd766]

After 12 years out of the UK you lose your vote anyway. And it is then very difficult to get it back.

The EC people are NOT in the least bit helpful, because civil servants these days are usually rather pro-establishment government-supporting jobsworths. The funny thing is that six years ago they sent me a postal vote. It arrived here the day after the general election, by which time I was already in the UK on holiday. (Not that it is possible to regain your vote by short-term residence anyway. If you go to a registration office in person they will only allow you to talk to a registrar by telephone from the reception desk. You must be resident they say, even if you are staying in the ancestral home - but they will then avoid defining 'resident'.) So my postal vote arrived too late, and when I pointed it out to them, they checked the details and told me it had been sent in error to me anyway, as in 2010 I had already been out of the country for longer than 12 years. They implied that a head was rolling because of this error. They implied that the office in question was under investigation. And I have since noted from a regional newspaper report that this particular office rather suspiciously lost a very high number of registered expat and other voters just before the last election. And when I reported this to the local MP, he told me that he had known about it and had probably lost quite a few votes because of it. In 2015, I was again back in the UK again quite a few days before the election, and made a token gesture of trying to register at an actual office on the strength of residence in the ancestral shack. I got the usual phone from the reception desk fob-off and a pleasant but completely useless election official who could not define residence.

Much in the same manner as Jeb Bush, I'm pretty certain that the current UK establishment is engaged in a long-term game of playing with constituency boundaries and their electorate in order to favor the Nasty Party.

I suppose you might say I'm still vaguely a pro-EC, although it is certainly not at all an accountable organisation to the electorate in its current form. I can certainly sympathise with the exit folks. But I will say this. Almost regardless of whether we stay in or leave, we are still going to see a declining industrial base, more remote decision-making, an ever-widening gap between top and bottom, and further mass unemployment. The current establishment of the UK will continue going its own sweet undemocratic way with absolutely no desire to do anything other than bail out the already rich. It almost is a completely wasted vote. If I could vote, I think I would be looking into the best and most blatant way of spoiling the ballot paper in such a way that it is completely clear that I have complete distain for the current political mob regardless of whether they want in or out. Or just not voting at all, and making it blatantly obvious why. Neither side is ever again likely to do me any favours, but they are very likely to keep on lining their pockets at our expense.

Not true at all.

It is 15 years and not 12. Try to get your facts right before you post.

[SoiBiker]

The old trick used to be that you could vote but you could not choose the constituency, and there are many in Thailand who would rather not give their personal details to the British government.

Why would you expect to be able to choose your constituency? You don't get to do that in the UK.

If you register to vote as an expat, you get to vote in the constituency you were last registered at before you left the UK.

[SoiBiker]

I would suspect that most of the punters that were smart enough to get out of the UK, couldn't really care what happens over there any more anyway.

Couldn't get much worse no matter which way the vote goes.

I was in Knightsbridge a few years back and it was hard to find any English people left there.

I cared enough to vote in the last election. I'll be voting in the referendum too.

There are probably as many English people in Knightsbridge as there are Thais in Sukhumvit. Odd place to judge the whole country by. It probably helps if you don't equate 'English' with 'White'.

We'll be staying in. The Brits always end up supporting the status quo in the end.

[sandyf]

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling a little suspicious about our government. I trust none of them, regardless of their political hue.

Strange, most on here think they are fit to be world leaders.

[Mexlark]

If it is ''not true'' at all, perhaps I will attempt to register again. ;-) I was originally told 15, but was later informed that it is now 12. (What's 3 years between rabid enemies anyway?) Perhaps that is also part of the deliberate misinformation machine that UK politics now is.

After 12 years out of the UK you lose your vote anyway. And it is then very difficult to get it back.

The EC people are NOT in the least bit helpful, because civil servants these days are usually rather pro-establishment government-supporting jobsworths. The funny thing is that six years ago they sent me a postal vote. It arrived here the day after the general election, by which time I was already in the UK on holiday. (Not that it is possible to regain your vote by short-term residence anyway. If you go to a registration office in person they will only allow you to talk to a registrar by telephone from the reception desk. You must be resident they say, even if you are staying in the ancestral home - but they will then avoid defining 'resident'.) So my postal vote arrived too late, and when I pointed it out to them, they checked the details and told me it had been sent in error to me anyway, as in 2010 I had already been out of the country for longer than 12 years. They implied that a head was rolling because of this error. They implied that the office in question was under investigation. And I have since noted from a regional newspaper report that this particular office rather suspiciously lost a very high number of registered expat and other voters just before the last election. And when I reported this to the local MP, he told me that he had known about it and had probably lost quite a few votes because of it. In 2015, I was again back in the UK again quite a few days before the election, and made a token gesture of trying to register at an actual office on the strength of residence in the ancestral shack. I got the usual phone from the reception desk fob-off and a pleasant but completely useless election official who could not define residence.

Much in the same manner as Jeb Bush, I'm pretty certain that the current UK establishment is engaged in a long-term game of playing with constituency boundaries and their electorate in order to favor the Nasty Party.

I suppose you might say I'm still vaguely a pro-EC, although it is certainly not at all an accountable organisation to the electorate in its current form. I can certainly sympathise with the exit folks. But I will say this. Almost regardless of whether we stay in or leave, we are still going to see a declining industrial base, more remote decision-making, an ever-widening gap between top and bottom, and further mass unemployment. The current establishment of the UK will continue going its own sweet undemocratic way with absolutely no desire to do anything other than bail out the already rich. It almost is a completely wasted vote. If I could vote, I think I would be looking into the best and most blatant way of spoiling the ballot paper in such a way that it is completely clear that I have complete distain for the current political mob regardless of whether they want in or out. Or just not voting at all, and making it blatantly obvious why. Neither side is ever again likely to do me any favours, but they are very likely to keep on lining their pockets at our expense.

Not true at all.

It is 15 years and not 12. Try to get your facts right before you post.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Mexlark

[SoiBiker]

It's 15.

[brewsterbudgen]

It's 15.

Correct.

Who can register as an overseas voter?

If you are a UK citizen living abroad, you can apply to be an overseas voter.

You must have been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years and be eligible to vote in UK Parliamentary general elections and European Parliamentary elections.

If you were too young to register when you left the UK, you can still register as an overseas voter. You can do this if your parent or guardian was registered to vote in the UK, as long as you left the UK no more than 15 years ago.

http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/register-to-vote/british-citizens-living-abroad

[oldlakey]

Thankfully I will never have to return to the UK unless I want to

I cannot envisage any situation when that would occur

I have no particular dislike for the UK

I am 67 years old and see no reason to return

I am financially sound ALSO sound of mind

In the last two years both my parents are now at peace

My children nor my siblings need my help financial or otherwise at this present time

My government takes from me what the law of the land say they are entitled to

I receive from my government my state pension as earned at the day of my retirement

No increase in this pension is given as I have decided to make myself a non resident

They have no say on my private pension apart from the income tax which is paid as the law demands

I just get on with my life on a day to day basis

I personally have no interest in an in or out vote

I am much more interested in the price of guinness in the discovery inn in Malacca

I will say to you all that I hope you get the result you want

AMEN

[Mexlark]

Thanks for that!

It's 15.

Note there has been some thought of removing the current 15 year timeframe. But I suppose an EU exit might have a negative impact on that:

QUOTE: ..........

The Representation of the People Act 1989, which came into force in 1990, increased this period to 20 years. More recently, the period during which UK citizens overseas are eligible to vote was considered during the passage through Parliament of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The matter was debated in both Houses, and the conclusion - set out in the Act - was that 15 years was a more appropriate length of time. The new 15 year limit has applied from 1 April 2002.

Government have recently indicated that they are reviewing the current 15 year limit with a view of removing this timeframe.

You should note that the Commission has no power to make or amend electoral law, electoral law is decided in Parliament and drafted by the Cabinet Office. Should you wish to make representation to government about the 15 year rule for overseas electors, and to obtain further information about their consideration of the timeframe you will need to contact the Cabinet Office. .......... :

Kind regards

Mark Nyack

Public Information

The Electoral Commission

3 Bunhill Row

London EC1Y 8YZ UNQUOTE

Edited May 10, 2016 by Mexlark

[Farang99]

If it is more than 15 years since you left UK you are not eligible to vote.

[daveAustin]

My overseas proxy vote is in. At least there'll be one vote to remain IN!

Not that anyone here is interested in how you'll vote, but whatever floats your boat.