Tomorrow is the deadline to register to vote in this year’s elections

British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens (and EU citizens for this year at least) living in the UK have until tomorrow (17th April) at 11.59pm to register to vote in this year’s local elections.

The process takes less than five minutes and you can do it online by going to: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Local authorities are responsible for a quarter of public services in the UK, particularly those which you are most likely to use on a day-to-day basis, and are one of the very few organisations other than central government who can impose their own tax. What happens in these local elections will have a daily impact upon your life.

While we do not know which way people vote, political parties do know if you turned out to vote and it does influence political decisions. If you want to know why services for young adults are always the first thing to be cut and services for pensions the last, have a look at their relative turnouts. Even if you decide to spoil your ballot, not going to vote is the best signal you can send to political parties that your opinions really aren’t worth listening to.

If you want to do something about that, there are two ways of voting:

Firstly, you can join the increasing numbers who vote by post (including myself), by going to https://postalvote.labour.org.uk/ to download a form (a signed copy needs to be returned to the council by 5pm on 18th April, so make sure to apply early).
Alternatively, you can go to your local polling station on the day (4th May) and cast your vote in person (go to https://iwillvote.org.uk to check where your local polling station is). From this year, everyone will need photo ID to be able to vote a list of acceptable ID can be found here and you can apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate using this link any time before 5pm on the 25th April.