More time to register to vote

Anyone who has still not registered to take part in the UK’s EU referendum now has until midnight tonight.

The deadline has been extended from midnight on Tuesday – two days ago – to tonight, after technical problems left some people unable to sign up on the registration website on Tuesday.

The Electoral Commission asked the government for the extension and the government has said it will introduce emergency legislation to validate this.

The commission is now telling people to make use of the site www.gov.uk/register-to-vote for final registrations today and a spokeswoman said they understand this extension applies to everyone, including UK citizens overseas. You will need your passport and UK National Insurance number.

Remember, all Britons who have been resident in France less than 15 years can vote if they were registered voters before leaving, as can their children who were too young to vote when they lived in the UK. However, expats must not assume they are still registered from last year’s General Election, unless this has been confirmed to them by the elections office in their old UK constituency.

Deadlines for applications for postal or proxy votes have not changed. Today is the final day for applying for a postal proxy vote and 17.00 on Wednesday next week will be the final day to apply for a proxy vote.

Concerning the recent confusion over the envelopes for the return of postal ballots, as we stated in the article above, La Poste confirmed that the pre-franked envelopes being provided ARE recognised by the French postal service for postage to the UK (however this is only the case if they are franked International Business Reply Service - IBRS - and marked in French "Réponse payée Grande Bretagne"; it does not apply if ordinary UK 'Business Reply Plus' was used).

La Poste has however now also clarified to Connexion that in cases where British people in France placed French stamps on the envelopes – in some cases advised to do so by certain rural post offices – this will not invalidate them.

A La Poste spokeswoman said: “I can confirm to you that the envelopes will be processed by La Poste’s machines and will indeed be delivered to their destination, even if certain people have added stamps on them.”