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The UK Government's decision to allow 3 million British expatriates abroad to join the 2024 electoral register is an important step towards strengthening democratic principles and the inclusion of all citizens in the political process. The removal of the previous rule, which prevented those who had been abroad for more than 15 years from voting, will allow British expats to participate more actively in elections and express their views on the future of their country.

My wife and I lived in the USA from 2004 -2016 before returning to the UK for six years, returning in 2021. When we left UK we were registered electors at our UK address. early this year we applied to become registered electors in the UK as is our right and according to our received emails this happened. We then had to apply separately for postal votes. We did this but did not receive ballot papers in time to complete and return. As of now (May 15th) we have still not received any papers even though the election was on May 2nd so have just written to the Returning Officer for our district to find out why.

The whole thing does seem ill thought out by the government because there are a few reasons why this is never going to work. The main one being that the ballot papers for elections in the UK are not printed until about 28 days before the election. It is therefore impossible in my mind for those papers to arrive in Canada, USA, Australia, new Zealand etc. etc, and be returned to the UK in time to be counted. I understand there are no plans to introduce online voting in the UK so is this idea seems dead before it even starts? Will keep you posted as to the reply from our query with the Returning Officer.