Campaign tells voters ‘their vote matters’
The electoral watchdog is to launch the first stage of a £9m campaign to raise awareness of the new voter registration system that comes into force later this month.
Individual Electoral Registration (IER) requires each member of a household to register to vote. At the moment, the “head of the household” is required to supply the names of registered voters at the address.
The Electoral Commission campaign will run in England and Wales and use the strapline “Your vote matters. Make sure you’re in”. Media includes TV, online and outdoor. Just under a third (£2.7m) of the £9m to be spent between now and the general election in May 2015 will be invested in this initial push.
The activity will also see The Electoral Commission use partnership marketing for the first time. Working with representative bodies it will attempt to raise awareness of the change to the system among under registered voting groups such as students – a deal has already been struck with the National Union of Students – and people from the black and ethnic minority communities.
Letters and leaflets have been created for local authorities to distribute.
Alex Robertson, The Electoral Commission’s director of communications, says: “Our multi-channel campaign is focused on encouraging people to look out for a letter from their local authority which will explain what they need to. The majority of us will be automatically registered, but a significant minority won’t. We’ve built every element of the campaign to focus on this group, from the letters people receive to the advertising they see on TV or in their streets.”
IER was passed into law last year in an attempt to reduce registration fraud.
