Voting Rights Update

Huge thanks to everyone who took part in our survey on the voting experiences of UK citizens overseas. The survey closed on 4 March 2023. We received over 7100 completed replies (not bad for a 30-page survey with anything up to 59 questions) from British citizens living in 65 countries and Crown dependencies.

The results were fascinating and revealed how strongly disenfranchised British nationals overseas want their voting rights back in the UK and that the vast majority of us, whether we can currently still vote or not, intend to vote at the next general election.

Those of us who do not currently have the vote in the UK are now waiting for the secondary legislation that is needed to set out the registration and voting procedures to be drafted and laid before Parliament. British in Europe sent a first cut of our survey findings to the responsible department, Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), on 23 March. We hope that the survey findings, particularly on previous obstacles experienced in registration and postal voting, will be taken into account in the draft legislation to ensure that all new procedures are made as easy as possible for overseas electors. We have been told by DLUHC that they are reviewing the report and we will soon have a meeting with them to discuss the results.

The legislation was due to be adopted and come into force at the end of October 2023. The timetable has now slipped but we understand from DLUHC that it is UK government policy for the secondary legislation to enter into force and for voter registration to open in January 2024. With political commentators anticipating a general election sometime between May and October 2024 this should still enable us to register and vote. Obviously, if an election is called for May, it will be tight but there are measures we can take as individuals and that can be incorporated into the legislation to mitigate this.

We are doing some more data digging in the survey but hope to put a public version of our report up on the BIE website in May/June.

19 May 2023