Hounslow Council Wants To Know Who Lives In Your Home

Watch for your email about voter registration

Each year Hounslow Council has to check that the right people are registered to vote at every address in the borough.

The Council’s electoral services has begun to contact all residential properties in the borough to ask residents to confirm who is currently living there and is eligible to vote.

For the first time this year, some households will be communicated via email initially before a paper form is sent by post in August to any non-responding properties.

The new process is simple, clearer and faster for responding online and in 2016, 45 per cent of all responses to the Household Enquiry Form were made online, compared to 42 per cent by post.

Electors living in just over 40,000 properties will receive the email inviting them to respond online to the Household Enquiry Form.

These will be sent to any registered electors in the household who have previously supplied their email address to electoral services.

The remaining 60,000 properties will be sent a Household Enquiry Form by post and must respond by Monday 7 August, but will still have the option to respond online via the online response service.

The Household Enquiry Form is not a registration form, it is purely used to collect information about who is living in the property and who is eligible to vote.

You must also still respond to the Household Enquiry Form. It is a legal requirement to respond to the Household Enquiry Form and if you don’t you could be fined £1,000.

Any new people that have moved into the property or have reached voting age and are not listed on the form or online response service will also need to complete their own individual application to register to vote. They should do this immediately online at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote.

Cllr Theo Dennison, Cabinet Member for Finance and Citizen Engagement, Hounslow Council, is urging residents to look out for the email in the first instance.

He said: “It’s really important that everyone responds. If you can respond by email that helps us get this information updated quickly.

“For those who receive the letter, please read it and get the details back to us.

“In most cases everyone who was registered to vote will still be registered to vote, but some people will need to get in in touch with us to re-register.

“The emails and letters will make it clear exactly what you have to do and help is available from the Council if you need it. Your vote matters, so make sure you don’t miss out.”

If you still have questions about the annual canvass, you can email elections@hounslow.gov.uk or contact the helpline on 020 8583 2828 (Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm). The Household Enquiry Form is not a registration form, it is purely used to collect information about who is living in the property who is eligible to vote. Any new people that have moved into the property or have reached voting age and are not listed on the form or online response service will also need to complete their own individual application to register to vote. They should do this immediately online at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote.

July 29, 2017