Less than a week left to register for Sheffield Council May 2 elections

The deadline to register to vote on May 2 is midnight on Tuesday, April 16.

Around 44 million people are estimated to be eligible to vote at this year’s May elections in England and Wales. Yet as many as seven million people are either incorrectly registered or missing from the register entirely, says the commission.

This is more than the combined adult population of Scotland and Wales, and would be equivalent in number to more than 100 UK Parliament constituencies.

Electoral registrations for local elections in Sheffield in December 2022 stood at 387,442, according to the Office for National Statistics. The number of attainers – young people who would be eligible to vote by the end of 2022 when they reached the age of 18 – was 786.

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The number of people who actually voted in the city in the May 2022 council elections was 128,374 – 33.1 per cent of eligible voters.

Issues

Craig Westwood, Electoral Commission director of communications, said: “Only people registered to vote can have their say at the May elections on issues important to their local areas. It only takes five minutes.

“It’s also crucial that voters remember to bring their photo ID to polling stations. Anyone that does not have an accepted form can apply for a free voter ID until April 24.”

You can register to vote online at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote. You must be aged 18 or over on polling day, a British citizen resident in the UK, or an Irish, EU or qualifying Commonwealth citizen resident in the UK.

The Sheffield City Council website has a page with details about voting, including how to apply for a postal vote: https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/voting.

Anyone previously on the register who has recently moved home or whose details have changed will need to register to vote again.

In Sheffield, one-third of the 84 councillors in all 28 wards are up for election this year, plus one extra casual vacancy in Firth Park. The council is currently under no overall control, with LibDems two seats behind the Labour as the biggest party.

The South Yorkshire Mayoral elections will be held at the same time.