How to use your vote in the General Election
This Thursday (July 4), unless you have a postal or proxy postal vote, you should head to your polling place to cast your vote in the 2024 UK Parliamentary General Election.
Each polling place will be open from 7am to 10pm to allow sufficient time for everyone to vote.
Your poll card and any proxy vote letter you have on someone’s behalf tells you where you should go to vote – most likely a community building near where you live.
At the polling station, staff will ask for your name and address and check that you are on the register. You can show them your poll card, although you do not necessarily need this to vote – however you MUST bring photographic ID such as a passport or driving licence.
Acceptable forms of ID – which can be expired as long as the voter is recognisable – include:
• Passport – issued by the UK, any of the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, a British Overseas Territory, a European Economic Area (EEA) state or a Commonwealth country
• Photo driving licence (including provisional) – issued by the UK, any of the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, or an EEA state
• Blue disability badge
• Identify card with Proof of Age Standards Scheme (Pass) mark
• Certain concessionary travel cards
• Biometric immigration document
• Defence/veteran identify card
The name on a voter’s photographic ID, whether their own or the free document issued by local councils, should be the same name they used to register to vote.
Expired photo ID will be accepted if the photo remains a good enough likeness for polling station staff to be able to identify you.
Once ID has been confirmed, polling staff will then hand you a ballot paper and direct you to a private polling booth where you should mark the paper appropriately for your chosen candidate - first reading any instructions on the ballot paper or displayed on the walls.
Do not mark the paper other than as indicated otherwise your vote may not be counted.
Then fold the ballot paper and pop it in the ballot box.
In all our polling places, there will be polling staff who can answer any questions you may have about the voting process.
Further information can be found at https://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/elections
Remember you MUST take appropriate photo ID when you attend a polling station to cast your vote