7. The annual canvass
Each year Electoral Registration Officers are required to contact every household within their area to check whether they have the correct people registered to vote. This process is known as the “annual canvass”. From 2020, the government has changed the way we can conduct this and, to make the process much simpler, we are now allowed to contact you in a variety of ways such as by email and text message.
Canvass Communications
In Teignbridge we intend to initially contact households from the end of July to late August, so please look out for the canvass communication from us. You may be asked to respond and either confirm the information we hold is correct, or advise us of any changes. If you are asked to do this, please do so as soon as possible using one of the automated options you will be given.
How to respond
Please read the communication you receive very carefully, as you may not need to respond at all.
Wherever possible we would ask that you use an automated response option as this will help to minimise the amount of post coming into our offices during the ongoing public health situation. If you use the online response option you will be able to notify us of changes to the information we hold, request postal or proxy vote applications and manage your open register status. The telephone and SMS response options can only be used to confirm that all the information we currently hold is correct.
- Visit the response website,
- Call 0800 197 9871 and enter part 1 and part 2 of your security code,
- Text NO CHANGE followed by your security code to 80212.
The aim of the canvass is to make sure the electoral register is up to date and that everyone who is entitled to vote in elections is able to do so.
Invitation to Register
If you notify us that someone else at your property needs to register, they can do this directly online themselves at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
If they do not go online to register by the time we receive the information from you then we will send them an application form called an Invitation to Register (ITR) to complete and return to us or, where we hold their email address, we will email them a direct link to the government’s Register to Vote website.
There are no updates to the register from September to November. Once the canvass is completed, a fully revised Electoral Register is published on 1 December.