Rother District Council

Residents who vote in the elections by post or proxy are being contacted by Rother District Council to renew their signatures. Absent Voters (i.e. those who vote by post or proxy) are required to provide a signature and date of birth ("personal identifiers") when they first apply.

In 2006 new measures to improve the security of postal votes and proxy votes were introduced. An important part of these security measures is providing a fresh specimen signature every 5 years.

Signatures 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 originally applied for a postal, proxy or postal proxy in the month of January 2007 will be sent a signature refresh form. These forms will be sent to households in January 2012 and residents are urged to sign and return the form by 21 February 2012.

Please help the Council to save money by returning this form immediately. If we do not receive your form by this date, we are legally obliged to send reminders.

Why is a new signature required?

When you are sent your postal vote at election time, 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.  This is to ensure that your vote cannot be used by anyone else.  These details are not used for any other purpose. 

If you have a disability which means that you either cannot provide a signature or sign in a consistent and distinctive way, please indicate this on the form and make sure the name and address of your helper is provided.

What will happen if the form is not returned?

If you do not return the signature refresh form by the deadline of 12 March 2012, your existing absent vote facility will be cancelled and you will have to vote in person or make a new application.

If you no longer want to vote by post you must contact us as soon as possible in order to avoid any unnecessary reminders.

For further help please contact the Election's Helpline on 01424 787825.

1 February 2012

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