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Absent Vote - Personal Identifier Refresh

Under the Representation of the People’s Act 2001, we are required to write to all absent voters including postal voters, electors who have appointed a proxy and postal proxies, whose application is more than five years old. We will require you to provide a fresh signature and confirm your date of birth in order for you to keep your absent vote.

Your absent vote signature must be refreshed every five years, as when you use your absent vote during an election, the copy of the signature that you provide will be checked against the signature and date of birth that you provided on your application form. This verification helps to prevent fraud and reduces the number of votes that are rejected do to mismatched records. Therefore, if you have not refreshed your signature since January 2018, then we will write to you.

Please look out for the form being sent to your address ensuring to complete and return it to us as soon as possible. This will only apply to you if:
  • You have voted by post at the same address for over five years,
  • Have appointed someone else to vote on your behalf indefinitely (proxy)
  • Have appointed someone else to vote on your behalf indefinitely (proxy) where the proxy has a postal vote (postal proxy).
If you do not return the form by the deadline Thursday 9 March 2023 then your absent vote will be cancelled and you will have to make a new application or you will need to cast your vote in person at your polling station. If you have any questions about this, please contact the elections office at elections@stroud.gov.uk or phone 01453 766321.