Your vote matters … make sure you’re registered

Orkney residents should receive their annual Electoral Registration Household Enquiry form through the post in the coming days.

With the forms due to arrive soon, the local Registration Office is encouraging everyone to make sure their details are up to date.

The Scottish Elections (Reduction of Voting Age) Act 2015 is now in place and from 2016 the voting age for Scottish Parliamentary and local government elections has been reduced to 16.

To give young people the chance to vote in these elections in 2016 and 2017, the details of 14 and 15 year olds resident in the property must also be included when completing the household form.

Electoral Registration Officer for Orkney and Shetland Dennis Stevenson said:  “It is important that householders read this letter and confirm if there have been changes to the household, or if the details remain the same.

“The forms we have issued are different to those of previous years, and householders can now also respond either online, by text, or by phone as alternatives to returning the form by post.

“We trialled this back in 2013 and found this to be much more convenient for electors – and efficient for us – than returning the paper form in the post.”

He added: “Electoral registration is now a two stage process and follows on from the correspondence that we issued to electors in 2014.

“The householder is now required to give details of all the residents in the property, but any new electors in a property must also register individually to give the additional details that the process now requires.  Again, this can now be done online and we would strongly urge electors to use this method rather than the completion of a paper form issued by this office.”

It is important that a response is received for every property in Orkney, and owners of properties that are vacant or have no permanent residents are asked to confirm this.

For more information, contact the Electoral Registration Office at 8 Broad Street, Kirkwall – tel 01856 876222 – or email ero@orkney.gov.uk