Electoral Registration
The Electoral Services team is responsible for compiling and maintaining the Register of Electors, as well as keeping the location and boundaries of electoral areas and polling stations under review where the Council is permitted to by law. These include Borough Wards, Parish boundaries, Polling Districts and Polling Places.
To be able to vote at any election or referendum your name must appear on the Register of Electors. You must therefore register yourself as must any others at the address where you live.
If you wish to vote by post or proxy at any future elections, you must be registered under Individual Electoral Registration. Forms for these purposes can be downloaded on the right hand side of this page. These forms can be scanned and emailed back to us at postal.voting@testvalley.gov.uk. Alternatively, they can be returned in the post to the address shown at the top of the form, or handed into either our Andover or Romsey office.
Please note that if you use an electronic signature to sign your postal application, at election time you will be required to sign the postal voting statement that will be sent with your ballot paper. This signature will be matched against the one provided on your application form and they must match. If they do not, your ballot paper will be rejected and therefore will not count.
The Register of Electors is updated every month. However, applications need to be received several weeks before publication to guarantee inclusion and these dates are shown below. Once your application has been received, if there are no objections, we will write to tell you that your application has been allowed by the Electoral Registration Officer. Please note that in the run up to an election, you will only be able to vote in that election if your name has been added to the Register of Electors twelve working days before the election. If you are not yet registered, use the link on the right hand side of the page to apply to register.
The Registration dates for 2022/2023 are:
| Publication Date | Latest Application Date |
| Tuesday 3 January 2023 | Monday 12 December 2022 |
| Wednesday 1 February 2023 | Tuesday 10 January 2023 |
| Wednesday 1 March 2023 | Tuesday 7 February 2023 |
| Tuesday 4 April 2023 | Friday 24 March 2023 |
| Tuesday 2 May 2023 | Thursday 6 April 2023 |
| Thursday 1 June 2023 | Wednesday 10 May 2023 |
| Monday 3 July 2023 | Friday 9 June 2023 |
| Tuesday 1 August 2023 | Monday 10 July 2023 |
| Friday 1 September 2023 | Thursday 10 August 2023 |
| Monday 2 October 2023 | Friday 8 September 2023 |
| Wednesday 1 November 2023 | Tuesday 10 October 2023 |
A canvass also takes place every year to ensure that the register is up-to-date and a new register is published on 1 December.
There are two registers. Why?
Using information received from the public, registration officers keep two registers – the electoral register and the open register (also known as the edited register).
The electoral register
The electoral register lists the names and addresses of everyone who is registered to vote in public elections. The register is used for electoral purposes, such as making sure only eligible people can vote. It is also used for other limited purposes specified in law, such as:
• detecting crime (e.g. fraud)
• calling people for jury service
• checking credit applications.
The open register
The open register is an extract of the electoral register, but is not used for elections. It can be bought by any person, company or organisation. For example, it is used by businesses and charities to confirm name and address details. Your name and address will be included in the open register unless you ask for them to be removed. Removing your details from the open register does not affect your right to vote.
You can find more information about both registers and how they may be used at
www.gov.uk/register-to-vote.
Once an elector has opted out they don’t need to tell us again unless their circumstances change, such as re-registering at another address.
Additionally individual electors can contact the electoral registration office at the address or email address below at any time to ask for their details to be taken out of the open register. You will need to give us your name and address and confirm that you wish for your details to be excluded from the open register. Each person must do this individually – you cannot do this for other people. The request must be in writing, so you cannot do this by phone call.
If you opt-out you can also change your mind and ask for your details to be included in the open register, by writing to us at the address or email address below.
Your personal information
We will only use the information you give us for electoral purposes. We will look after personal information securely and we will follow the Data Protection Act 1998. We will not give personal information about you and the other people in your household to anyone else or another organisation unless we have to by law.
Please note that political parties and candidates are entitled to copies of the full Electoral Register prior to the elections, to assist them with their campaigns. There are strict rules regarding what they can do with the information contained within the register and are only entitled to use it for electoral purposes.
If you are unsure as to whether you are registered or not, please contact Test Valley Borough Council on 01264 368000 or elecreg@testvalley.gov.uk.