United Kingdom: Labour urges action to improve voting among UK homeless | The Guardian
Labour has urged the government to use planned reforms to the electoral system to ensure more people without a permanent home are helped to vote, after statistics showed that only about 2% are registered. The Cabinet Office is due later to announce details later this month of its democratic engagement strategy, which aims to improve voter turnout by making it more straightforward for people to join the electoral register. Concerted efforts to help overseas voters and students to sign up had increased the size of the electoral register, but Labour says the system for people without a permanent address is unwieldy and offputting. Most voters can sign up online, but people who are homeless or in temporary accommodation have to download, print and manually fill in a form called a declaration of local connection, which must then be sent to the local electoral registration officer.