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”. Depending on the contact details we hold for you and how up to date your household information is, you may receive a communication from us in a number ways, i.e. an enquiry form sent through the post, a communication sent by email, or a message sent by text.

Canvass Communications

In Teignbridge we intend to make initial contact with households from early August through to mid September, so please look out for a 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 one of the automated response options as this will help to minimise the costs to the Council associated with responding by post. If you use the online response option you will be able to confirm your details, notify us of changes required 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 Household 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 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.

The last monthly update to the current register will be published on 1 September and to be included in this update you must be registered by 10 August. Once the canvass is completed, a fully revised Electoral Register will be published on Thursday 1 December.