"Welcome to your vote" campaign

Earlier this year the Senedd passed a significant new law, known as the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act. One of the important changes included in this new law was to allow 16 and 17 year olds, as well as qualifying foreign citizens, to register and vote in Wales for the first time.

This is a big change to our democracy in Wales and to highlight this, we have launched a new campaign called “Welcome to your vote”. Put simply, we want to ensure that these new voters firstly understand that they can now take part in our democratic process and then are clear as to how to do so.

The campaign will run until the autumn and will specifically target these new groups through advertising on social media, website and digital radio channels.

There will be more work between now and next May’s Senedd elections, including the publication of education resources and a national pre-election campaign, to ensure that voters in Wales, including the newly enfranchised, are aware of their rights and how they can confidently take part in our democracy.

Below are useful answers to some questions you may have about this campaign, the franchise changes and registering to vote.

Our Welcome to your vote campaign, launched last week, welcomes the newly enfranchised to democracy in Wales. The campaign uses social media channels (Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat), digital display and digital audio advertising, to encourage the newly enfranchised to register to vote.

We want to welcome the newly enfranchised to democracy in Wales. We want them to know they are now eligible to vote and to visit www.gov.uk/registertovote to register.

16 and 17 year olds and qualifying foreign citizens are now eligible to register and will be able to vote in the Senedd elections in May 2021.

14 and 15 year olds can also register to vote. If they are 16 years old on the day of the election, they will be able to vote.

A qualifying foreign citizen is a resident in Wales but isn’t a Commonwealth citizen, a citizen of the European Union or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, and has leave to remain or can be treated as having leave to remain. Find out more about which elections you can vote in.

To register to vote, visit gov.uk/registertovote.

You will need to provide:

  • name
  • address
  • date of birth
  • email address
  • nationality
  • National Insurance number (if you’re 16 or over)

If you have any questions about registering to vote or your application, get in touch with your local electoral registration office which is part of your local council. You can find their details on our postcode lookup.

If you don’t have a fixed address, you can still register to vote, by following a different process. Find out more about registering to vote without a fixed address.  

If you are concerned about your name and address appearing on the electoral register for safety reasons, then you can register to vote anonymously. Find out more about registering to vote anonymously.

The information that you provide when you register to vote is securely transferred to the Electoral Registration Officer at your local authority. We may also receive a copy of the electoral register, and you can find out more about how we look after the data added to electoral registers in our privacy policy.

The open register is a version of the electoral register that is mainly used for marketing purposes. When someone registers to vote there is always an option not to be included on the open register.

14 and 15 year olds will not appear on the open register.

How you can support our campaign

Download our welcome to your vote resources and share these with people in your networks, to help spread the word to our newly enfranchised groups.

We’re keen to work with as many partners as possible between now and next year’s Senedd elections, so please contact us if you’d like to get involved.

If you’re eligible, please register online to vote - it’s quick and easy and it will ensure that you’ll be able to take part in next year’s elections. We look forward to welcoming you to your vote!