Kieron

I registered as an overseas voter with Southwark council. Did anybody else do that and have Southwark tell you your ballot paper must have been "lost in the mail" or you've otherwise simply not received it?

Thanks for your concern if you've experienced similar with other local authorities but please limit responses to experience of Southwark - i'd like to see if this is wider spread?

thanks
Kieron

hungryhorace

I registered for a postal ballot. Unless I had been back in England last week, I wouldn't have been able to obtain it, as they still hadn't even been printed! It's a complete cock up all round.

Bob

Very hit or miss depending on borough.

A friend said they were finally registered yesterday and ballot sent today, another received one yesterday.

Mine and someone else I know got them a week or so ago.

No Southwark though.

Having said all that, getting registered was taking ages and wasn't happening but as soon as I lodged an official complaint, I got someone contacting me and sorting it out the next morning.

Sheepdip

Registered a while back and haven't heard a thing from Worthing Borough Council.

rpjs

I registered online back in February and pro-actively contacted Medway Council for a postal proxy form (not available online) as I didn't trust a postal vote to reach me in time to return. I got a response about three weeks later telling me to download a postal vote form (which wasn't what I asked for) but then a couple of days later I got another email saying that they had snail-mailed the correct form to me.

I did receive the form and returned it in good time, nominating a relative in the UK as my postal proxy. Unfortunately Medway did cock up slightly by writing to her to tell her she could vote in person as my proxy - she called them and explained that she was expecting a postal proxy vote and they did indeed send her one in time to return it.

So on the whole not too bad, but I strongly suspect that if I hadn't contacted Medway myself, I'd've heard nothing and not have been able to vote. I don't think the Electoral Commission make it clear enough that you don't simply just register to vote as an ex-pat: you need to take additional action to request a postal, proxy or postal proxy vote in order to make use of the registration. You'd think the local councils would be pro-active and reach out to ex-pats who register to ask how they want to exercise their vote, but it doesn't seem they do.

rpjs

Oh god, I've been here too long. Did I really just write "reach out"?