How to vote

Your polling card

If you are on the electoral register you will be sent a polling card at the end of March/early April. The card tells you when the election takes place and your allocated polling station.

If you have not received a polling card, please let us know.

Your polling station

The polling station you should visit is shown on your polling card. If you've lost your polling card, you can find your polling station here.

Voting times

On the day of the election, you can vote between 7am and 10pm.

What happens at the polling station?

At the polling station you will be asked to confirm your name and address, or you can hand in your polling card. You don’t need your poll card to vote, though, so don’t worry if you lose it or forget to take it with you on election day.

How to vote in both elections

On the day you will be given two ballot papers. One is for the mayoral election and the other for the local election in which you will elect your local councillor.

The mayoral ballot paper will be lilac and the local election ballot paper will be white.

Mayoral election

You have two votes on the mayoral ballot paper, one for your first choice candidate, and one for your second choice candidate. You mark your choices with an “X” in the usual way. You can vote for one candidate only if you wish, but make sure you place your “X” in the first choice column.

If you wish to make a first and a second choice vote, make sure you place an “X” in both columns. Do not place both “Xs” in one column. If you do, neither vote will count.

Find out how the votes are counted in the mayoral election.

Local election

To vote in the local election you should do as you have done in previous elections and mark one “X” next to the candidate you wish to vote for. You should put no other marks on the ballot paper, or your vote may not be counted.

It is only in the mayoral election that you can vote for your first and second choice candidate.

The votes in the local election are counted in the same way as previously. The candidate who gets the most votes wins - this is called the “first past the post” system.