Can you register to vote? (European Parliamentary Elections)

In the last week I was speaking to a couple of EU nationals living in London who were not aware they could vote in the upcoming local elections. This is hardly surprising as EU nationals cannot vote in general elections, nor could vote in the EU referendum in 2016. So, if you are:

• a British citizen living in the UK
• a qualifying Commonwealth citizen living in the UK
• a citizen of the Republic of Ireland living in the UK
• a European Union citizen living in the UK
• someone registered to vote as a Crown Servant
• someone registered to vote as a service voter

… you can vote in the local elections on May 3rd as long as you are registered to do so by April 17th.

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/faq/voting-and-registration/who-is-eligible-to-vote-at-a-local-government-election

If you haven’t yet, you have one week left to register to vote in the local elections in May.

Tick tock.

Bored? Register to vote if you can but haven’t yet. Deadline is Tuesday.

And if you want to vote by post the deadline for that request is Wednesday.

Will this be the last UK local election where EU citizens will be allowed to vote?

If so it’ll be interesting to see if anything changes when only U.K. citizens (which of course includes EU migrants who have chosen this as their long term home) are able to vote for the U.K. parliament.

That’s already the case for the UK parliament. EU citizens are only allowed to vote in local, regional, and EU elections - not national elections or referendas.
The only exception at present is Irish citizens who are allowed to vote in UK national elections.
But i assume (i may be wrong) that EU citizens will have no voting rights in local elections after Brexit - bringing them into line with national elections.

and citizens from Commonwealth nations at the moment.

Still dithering weather
to stand for local Cllr or not, not this round though

Last call for voter registration! Today midnight is the deadline.

With the extension of Article 50 to October 31st, there is a high probability that the UK will participate in the European Parliamentary elections at the end of May. So now is a good time to ensure you are registered to vote if you are eligible. Eligibility is outlined on the Electoral Commission website. But in summary, you can vote if you are:

• 18 years of age or over on polling day
• a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen, or a citizen of the European Union
• resident in the UK
• not be subject to any legal incapacity to vote

If you are a citizen of another European Union countries (other than the UK, Republic of Ireland, Malta and Cyprus) you must complete a form stating that they wish to vote in the UK and not in their home country. Again information on the Electoral Commission website.

Anticipated deadline for registration is May 7th.

Register here.

No. It will not.

Well it might be in London as we don’t have local elections this year. It is possible that EU citizens with permanent residency would have the right to vote in local elections after Brexit, but that’s not clear.

The European Parliamentary elections are a bit different from general or local elections. But these elections on 23rd May 2019 will give every EU, Commonwealth and British citizens over 18 living in the UK the right to vote - the largest franchise of any UK election.

Could be an interesting European Parliamentary election especially since it uses the D’Hondt system of PR, so that MEPs better represent the split of votes in each region.
The results from the 2014 elections in London had MEPs for:
Labour - 4 MEPs (37%)
Conservatives - 2 MEPs (23%)
UKIP - 1 MEP (17%)
Green - 1 MEP (9%)
Lib Dems - 0 MEPs (7%)

To make life slightly easier we don’t get a second choice. That will badly impact two parties representing roughly the same thing (Brexit Party/UKIP or Change UK/Lib Dems), but it also prevents single parties with high regional support for taking all the seats.

We do have two local by-elections