Running electoral registration - Wales

You can prompt an individual to make an application after you have given a formal ITR. There may be circumstances, such as immediately before an election, where you should encourage people to register informally and not wait to formally invite them to register.

Prompting and encouraging an application to be made, in particular an online application, has the potential to improve efficiency and reduce your costs because you will not have to start the formal ITR process, which would involve follow up activity if no response is received.

You can use contact information provided to you by individuals on canvass communications for any appropriate purpose in connection with that individual’s entitlement to be registered, or for the purpose of carrying out your duty to encourage electoral registration.1

If you do decide to informally prompt applications you should do so as soon as possible after you identify an individual, to allow time for them to make an application before a formal invitation is given.

You could prompt applications by:

• emailing a link to the online application form and providing information about the other available channels for registration if you have an e-mail address
• encouraging an application to register when following up a canvass communication using telephone canvassing, if you have identified potential new electors 
• providing information about how to register by phone or email to individuals who get in touch with the local authority contact centre about a change of address  

Any methods used to prompt applications should also enable you to identify and invite to register other potential new electors who may be resident at the same address. 

You should consider how you will evaluate your approach to prompting applications to understand how effective they are in encouraging registration and reducing the number of electors you formally invite to register. The outcome of any evaluation carried out may identify which approaches are most effective allowing you to tailor your approach to prompting applications across your local area.

You do not have to issue an invitation to an individual who, when informally prompted, makes an application before the end of the 28-day period in which an ITR must have been given.

If a prompt encouraging an individual to make an application to register does not lead to an application being made, you are still required send an ITR within 28 days of becoming aware of the potential elector.