Can I Vote in the General Election? | Promote the Migrant Vote

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In a General Election, you have one vote to choose a candidate to represent your constituency in the House of Commons (the UK Parliament). The winning candidate becomes your Member of Parliament (MP).

This is a quick guide to help you check if you are eligible to vote.

In order to be eligible to vote, you must be:

18 years old or above on the date of the election
be resident at an address in the UK (or a UK citizen living abroad who has been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years)
be a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland

By Country

You are eligible to vote in the UK General Elections if you are British, Irish, or from a qualifying Commonwealth country. If you are from a Commonwealth country, you must be resident in the UK and either have leave to remain in the UK or not require such leave. Commonwealth citizens include those of British Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories. Therefore, if you are from one of the following countries, and either have leave to remain or do not require such leave, then you are eligible to vote in the General Election!

Commonwealth Countries

Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
The Bahamas
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belize
Botswana
Brunei Darussalam
Cameroon
Canada
Cyprus*
Dominica
Fiji Islands**
Ghana
Grenada
Guyana
India
Jamaica
Kenya
Kiribati
Lesotho
Malawi
Malaysia
Malta*
Mauritius
Mozambique

Namibia

Nauru

New Zealand

Nigeria

Pakistan

Papua New Guinea

Rwanda

St Kitts & Nevis

St Lucia

St Vincent & The Grenadines

Samoa

Seychelles

Sierra Leone

Singapore

Solomon Islands

South Africa

Sri Lanka

Swaziland

The Gambia

Tonga

Trinidad and Tobago

Tuvalu

Uganda

United Kingdom

United Republic of Tanzania

Vanuatu

Zambia

Zimbabwe

British Crown Dependencies

Isle of Man
The Channel Islands (including Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, Herm and the other inhabited Channel Islands).

British Overseas Territories
Anguilla
Bermuda
British Antarctic Territory
British Indian Ocean Territory
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Falkland Islands
Gibraltar
Montserrat
Pitcairn Island
St Helena and dependencies (Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha)
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
Sovereign base areas on Cyprus
Turks and Caicos Island

Former residents of Hong Kong who hold a British Dependent Territories, British Nationals (Overseas) or British Overseas passport are also eligible to vote in a General Election.

Find out more information here. If you have any questions about whether or not you are eligible to vote, contact your local electoral registration office. You can find out their details here.

Exclusions

You cannot vote in a General Election if:

You are not British, Irish, or from a qualifying Commonwealth country
You are an EU Citizen. EU Citizens can vote in other elections in the UK, but not in the General Election. Find out more information here.
You are a convicted person detained in pursuance of your sentence, excluding contempt of court (though remand prisoners, unconvicted prisoners and civil prisoners can vote if they are on the electoral register)
You have been found guilty within the previous five years of corrupt or illegal practices in connection with an election

In order to vote, you must first register with the electoral commission. This is very important – you cannot vote in the General Election if you have not registered to vote first!

Registering to vote takes 5 minutes online if you have your address and your National Insurance number. You can register to vote online here.

Read our “Register to vote” guide on how to do it.

Who Can Vote?

On 12 December 2019, there will be a UK General Election. To vote in a UK general election, a person must be registered to vote and also:

be 18 or over
be a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland
not be subject to any legal incapacity to vote

The deadline to register to vote is 26 November 2019. For more information, check out our ‘Can I Vote’ page or on the Electoral Commission website here: electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/which-elections-can-i-vote

Important Information

Before you can vote, you must first register to vote. You must do this before 26 November 2019!

The process is simple and only takes 5 minutes.

You can register online at https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

There will be a deadline to register to vote about two weeks before the General Election – so it’s really important that you sign up as soon as possible!

Check out our guide on how to register to vote here.

Contact Us:

voters@migrantsorganise.org