Voters list

[Dave Murphy]

Could someone explain what this is.
Do you only appear on this after you have reached voting age. If so, what age is this.
What other information does it contain - DOB, age, etc

Dave Murphy - Aust

[mitchell]

Hi Dave,

The Voter's list or Electoral Register lists the names, addresses and dates of birth of everyone aged 18 or over who is entitled to and have registered to vote. They have to be resident in the UK or an EU citizen or Commonwealth citizen living in the UK.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_register

Elaine

[Forfarian]

The Voter's list or Electoral Register lists the names, addresses and dates of birth of everyone aged 18 or over who is entitled to and have registered to vote. They have to be resident in the UK or an EU citizen or Commonwealth citizen living in the UK.

It's not just quite so simple.

For one thing the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1969, so you would only get 21-year-olds before that.

Then you have to remember that not everyone has been entitled to vote throughout.
The Reform Acty of 1832 only gave the vote to male householders occupying a property worth £10 or more per annum, which was about one in seven of the total male population. Women could note vote at all until 1918, when most women over 30 were given the vote. Younger women finally got the right to vote in 1928. See
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/struggle_democracy/getting_vote.htm for a fuller account.

So a Register of Electors from 1950 is very informative, but one from 1850 would be much less so.

Also in recent years people have been allowed to opt out of having their names listed in publicly available Registers of Electors (they still have to be listed in the official version) so the Registers are no longer complete.

The information the Register contains is address, surname, first given name, initials of other given names and, in the case of someone attaining voting age during the validity of the Register, their date of birth. It does not give the date of birth of every voter.

[Dave Murphy]

Thanks very much for the info. Unfortunately Australia - up to the last cencus destroy all information, due to privacy. Only at the last option did they allow an option of keeping the info. All that material gone to waste !!!!