Code of Conduct for Campaigners at UK Parliamentary general elections in Great Britain, local elections in England and Police and Crime Commissioner Elections

Campaigners should be free to encourage voters to register to vote and apply to vote by post or appoint a proxy to vote on their behalf if that is the most convenient way for them to vote.

Campaigners can help to inform voters about how to participate in elections. They should encourage voters in the first instance to use the online electoral registration service and the online postal vote or online proxy vote application services (where available)1 , or they can provide voters with paper application forms. Electoral Registration Officers must support you by providing you with a reasonable number of registration and absent vote application forms on request. 

Campaigners should ensure that any electoral registration forms and postal or proxy voting application forms conform fully to the requirements of electoral law, including all the necessary questions and the options open to electors.   

You can download electoral registration forms from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-to-vote-if-youre-living-in-the-uk and absent vote application forms from Apply to vote by post | Electoral Commission and Apply to vote by proxy | Electoral Commission.  

Campaigners should ensure that the local Electoral Registration Officer’s address is clearly provided as the return address for registration and absent vote application forms.  

To ensure voters can make their own choice about how to return registration or absent vote application forms, you should always clearly provide the relevant Electoral Registration Officer’s address as the return address. This will also minimise the risk of suspicion that completed applications could be altered or inadvertently lost or destroyed. 

Campaigners should send any sealed completed registration or absent vote applications which voters give them on the doorstep to the relevant Electoral Registration Officer’s address within two working days of receipt and before the statutory deadline.   

If a voter asks you to take their completed application form and return it to the Electoral Registration Officer, you should ensure that the voter has sealed the form in an envelope before taking it. You should return forms to the Electoral Registration Officer directly to minimise the risk of absent vote applications being refused because completed forms arrive after the statutory deadline before a poll (5pm on the 11th working day before the poll).

Campaigners should always explain to electors the implications of applying to vote by post or appointing a proxy.  

It is important that electors understand that they will not be able to vote in person on polling day if they or their proxy apply for and are granted a postal vote, and will not be able to vote in person if their appointed proxy has already voted on their behalf. To avoid duplication and unnecessary administrative pressures for Electoral Registration Officers, campaigners should try to ensure that electors who are included in current postal or proxy voter lists, or have already applied for a postal or proxy vote for a particular poll, do not submit an additional application.  

When electors fill out their postal vote application forms, campaigners should never encourage them to choose to have their postal ballot pack redirected to anywhere other than the address where they are registered to vote.  

Electors should take care to protect their ballot paper and postal ballot pack, and they will be best able to do so at their home address unless there are compelling reasons why receiving the postal ballot pack at the address where they are registered to vote would be impractical. Electors must state on the application form the reason why they need their postal ballot pack sent to another address.  

Electors should be encouraged to explore other options for people to act as a proxy – including relatives or neighbours, for example – before a campaigner agrees to be appointed as a proxy.  

To minimise the risk of suspicion that campaigners may be seeking to place undue pressure on electors, electors should not be encouraged to appoint a campaigner as their proxy. There is now a limit to the amount of people someone can be a proxy for. You can act as a proxy for two people. If you vote on behalf of UK voters who live overseas, you can act as a proxy for up to four people (but only two of those can live in the UK). 

Campaigners should be free to inform voters that they need photographic identification to vote at certain elections and how to apply for a Voter Authority Certificate.

Campaigners can help to inform voters that they must produce a suitable form of photographic identification to vote in person at a polling station for the elections covered by this code (see scope section above). Campaigners can also encourage voters who lack a suitable form of photographic identification to apply for a Voter Authority Certificate which they can use to vote at their local polling station. Campaigners should encourage voters to check whether they have a suitable photo ID before making an application for a Voter Authority Certificate. The full list of accepted ID can be found here. Campaigners should encourage voters to apply for a Voter Authority Certificate online as this is the quickest and easiest way to apply. Voters can apply online by clicking here. However, it's also possible for voters to apply using a paper form by clicking here.

Campaigners should not handle paper-based Voter Authority Certificate applications or assist voters with online applications.

Voters will have to supply sensitive personal information when they apply for a Voter Authority Certificate, including photographs. Campaigners do not need to have access to this information.

Tellers must not ask to see or to check any voter’s photo ID themselves.

Tellers have no legal status and voters have the right to refuse to give them any information. Tellers may remind voters as they approach the polling station that they will need to provide photo ID to be issued with a ballot paper. But tellers must not ask to see or to check any voter’s photo ID (including voter authority certificates). The legal requirement to perform an ID check is for polling station staff only, as part of the voting process. For more information on the role of tellers and what they can and cannot do outside polling stations, please refer to our Guidance for Tellers and Dos and Don’ts for Tellers.