Communicating with individuals and households outside of the canvass

As part of your year-round activity to maintain an accurate and complete register throughout the year, you may wish to make enquiries with particular households outside of the canvass period to confirm if there have been changes in occupancy, and to ascertain the names of any new potential electors.

You will also find out about potential changes in occupancy at addresses through your year-round activity to identify new potential electors and electors who should be removed. You may discover potential changes in occupancy by:

• inspecting other local records, such as Council Tax, Housing, and Registrars
• being notified of a change of occupancy by electors, for example where they have moved and registered elsewhere
• being notified of a change of occupancy by a third party
• being notified of new properties and  inspecting records of other local authority departments
• being aware of properties which tend to have lots of changes throughout the year, such as HMOs – see our guidance on maintaining contact with responsible persons

Where you have been provided with the name and address of potential electors, you must  invite them to register. You may also  encourage them to register before sending a formal invitation to register.
 
Where you do not have sufficient information to invite individuals to register (such as the names of new residents) but are aware that changes in occupancy may have taken place you could use a discretionary communication to ascertain the names of new potential electors before inviting or encouraging them to register. A response to a discretionary communication could also serve as a second source of information for deleting electors.