Early voting at the Wales local elections

Local elections are taking place across Wales on May 5. You will be voting for local councillors to represent you on your local council. Local councils make decisions about lots of issues including sports and leisure facilities, parks, education services and how often your rubbish is collected. If you live in Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Torfaen or Bridgend, you’ll be able to take part in a Welsh Government pilot to trial early voting, before polling day on 5 May.


The pilots are designed to offer flexibility on when and where you can vote, to see if voting can be made easier. We will be evaluating the pilots and reporting on lessons learnt. We will be providing recommendations to the Welsh Government to ensure that electoral administrators can deliver the reforms effectively if they become law. The lessons learned will also be important to inform how voting can be modernised in Wales, and more widely. 
 

Details of the four early voting centre opening times and locations

Local authority Early voting centre location Opening times Eligibility
Caerphilly Caerphilly CBC, Penallta HouseTredomen Business Park, Ystrad Mynach, Hengoed CF82 7PG  Saturday 30 April and Sunday 1 May between 10am and 4pm All residents of the county
 
Torfaen Torfaen CBC, Civic Centre, Pontypool NP4 6YB Saturday 30 April and Sunday 1 May between 10am and 4pm All residents of the county
 
Bridgend
  • Brackla East and Coychurch Lower
  • Brackla East Central 
  • Brackla West 
  • Brackla West Central 
  • Cornelly 
  • Pyle, Kenfig Hill and Cefn Cribwr
  • St Bride’s Minor and Ynysawdre 

Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 May 
7am to 9pm

 

 

 

 

Residents in these wards at polling stations in their ward only

 

 

 

 


 
Cynffig Comprehensive School Tuesday 3 May 
8:30am to 4:30pm		 School students only
Blaenau Gwent Blaenau Gwent Learning Zone, Coleg Gwent Ebbw Vale, Lime Ave NP23 6GL Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 May 8am to 4pm All residents of the county
 

All residents in Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly or Torfaen local authority areas are eligible to vote at an early voting centre. If you live in Bridgend, you may be eligible to vote early – to find out, enter your postcode into our search to check if you can vote, and where your early voting centre is. 
To be able to take part in these elections, you have to be registered to vote. This applies if you want to vote early, as well as if you want to vote on polling day. If you haven’t registered yet, the deadline has now passed. 

There are a few things you should remember if you want to vote early in May:

  • The early voting centres are designed to make voting easier and more convenient, but you don’t have to vote at them if you don’t want to. You can still vote on Thursday 5 May at your usual polling station, or by post or proxy if you prefer
  • You don’t need to take your poll card with you to vote, but it can speed up the process
  • Local authorities will be following the latest public health guidance in their area to make sure polling stations, including the early voting centres, are safe places to vote, and will advise you of any measures that you need to follow
  • There might be people outside the early voting centres who will ask to talk to you about your experience of voting early. They’re there to help us collect feedback to evaluate the process and provide recommendations to the Welsh Government. You don’t have to talk to them if you don’t want to
  • If you don’t live in one of these authority areas, you won’t be eligible to use an early voting centre.

For more information about the pilots, please contact the relevant Electoral Services team: