Postal Voting

[2021-04-06: The deadline for registering to vote by post for the 2021-05-06 elections has now passed. More than one million people are registered to vote by post in those elections, up by around 250,000. So that’s good.]

(If you don’t live in Scotland, this is probably not very interesting.)

Elections to the Scottish Parliament are scheduled for Thursday 6 May 2021. There’s a small possibility that might need to be pushed back, and there are contingencies for that eventuality, but I don’t think it’s likely to happen unless things get really bad.

Neither do I expect things to get really good by that time, and if you feel the same way it’s worth reflecting that in the UK it is possible to vote by post in this election. You don’t have to give a reason; in fact, there’s nowhere on the form to put one. You do have to apply for a postal vote in advance, however, and the deadline for that is proposed to be brought forward for this election to allow for the expected higher volume of applications.

So, why not take a few minutes and do it now? The generic application can be found on the Electoral Commission site. You can fill out everything but the signature online before printing it out, signing it and posting the form to your local Electoral Registration Officer.