Postal, proxy or postal proxy votes are required to provide a signature and date of birth when they first apply.

When you are sent your postal vote for an election you are required to provide your signature and date of birth on a postal voting statement.  These ‘personal identifiers’ are checked against those you provided on your original postal vote application form, to ensure that they match.  This is to prevent someone else from using your vote.  If they do not match, your vote cannot be counted.  Your personal identifiers are always kept separate from your ballot paper, so no-one knows how you voted.

An important part of these security measures is providing a fresh specimen signature every 5 years, since people’s signature and circumstances can change over time.  The legislation requires the Electoral Registration Officer to carry out the first annual refresh of signatures by 31 January 2012 in order to ensure that the signatures for as many absent voters as possible are refreshed, producing as accurate a record as possible and potentially limiting the number of postal votes that are rejected due to mismatched identifiers.

Therefore, anyone who has had a postal, proxy or postal proxy since January 2007 will be sent a signature refresh form for us to legally request your latest signature.

Please look out for the form being sent to your address in February 2012.  Please make sure you sign and return it as soon as possible as we legally have to send a reminder 3 weeks later to everyone who does not respond.

If you now cannot sign, or cannot sign in the same way every time, but still want to vote by post, you can apply to keep your postal vote without giving your signature.  For more information and to find out how to apply, please contact the Electoral Services Office, details below.

If you do not return the signature refresh form within the six weeks your existing absent vote facility will be cancelled, you will then be able to vote in person or make a new application.

This signature refresh exercise will be undertaken every January.