The Electoral Commission has launched an ambitious drive to persuade 100,000 British expats to join the UK voting register ahead of the general election on May 7. However, pro-democracy campaigners say Britons abroad are annoyed with politicians at home over topics such as frozen pensions and winter fuel payments being cut – so they may not heed the call. Only 15,849 of the estimated 5.5 million Britons overseas were signed up to vote in UK elections as of March 2014, according to the commission. The last recruitment drive – aimed at adding 25,000 expats to the voters’ roll in the weeks before the European and local elections last May – fell flat. Only 7,079 signed up.
Since then, it has become possible to download a voter registration form online at gov.uk/register-to-vote where you can arrange to vote by proxy, by post or in person.
In the six months following the introduction of online registration in June 2014, an additional 17,168 applications were made from overseas, according to the commission.
However, it is unclear how many of those applications resulted in names being added to the register – the commission does not yet have those figures, according to a spokesman.
Full Article: UK drive to recruit 100,000 expat voters – Telegraph.