Friday, 17 October 2014

Registering to vote and web casting council meetings



I’m glad it’s Friday already although the week has flown by. It’s been a tough one as I’m sure it has been for you too. Or of course that may be because I did a 10 mile time trial this morning on my bike before work – 23 minutes 27 seconds for the record. My legs ache now…

One of my roles is electoral registration officer (ERO) for Wiltshire. Under the new electoral registration system called Individual Electoral Registration or IER, if existing postal voters and proxy voters have not been confirmed onto the new December 2014 IER register, their postal or proxy vote has to be cancelled. We estimate that this will affect just over 3,000 postal voters across our county. In addition, proxy voters will only be able to retain their proxy appointment if their proxy is also registered individually in that revised register. So if I can make you aware of this, and remind you to ensure that you, your family and friends have all registered for IER. The General Election will be held on 7 May 2015, and it is therefore important electors ensure they are correctly registered before December this year. I don’t want anybody to lose their right to vote.

I attended a members training event yesterday. From next week’s full Council meeting we shall be web casting a live stream of the whole event which will then be available on the web for those who can’t make the live time. This is a positive step for promoting transparent local democracy and decision making as well as making public meetings more accessible to those who can’t attend in person. Members were advised on some of the issues facing anybody being filmed and recorded. I am really looking forward to seeing what happens and how this might change the content and nature of democratic debate in the chamber.

Speak again soon. For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.

Carlton


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