You must be registered to vote by midnight on the 7th of May
Information about how to register to vote on this link: Register to vote
Who can vote?
You must be registered to vote and also be one of the following:
- 18 years of age or over on polling day
- a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen, or a citizen of the European Union
- resident in the UK
- not be subject to any legal incapacity to vote
For EU citizens living in the UK they can vote for a representative in their ‘home’ country (contact electoral authorities in their ‘home’ country) or they can use their vote in the UK. To do this EU citizens have to fill in a separate form and send it to their local authority by the 7th May of 2019.
European Union Citizens Registration Form
Link for EU citizens living in Northern Ireland
Scotland
You have 1 vote. Scotland is one ‘region’ and your 1 vote will be added to all the others. Political parties will have a list of candidates and the number of MEPs elected for each party will be based on the number of votes cast for that party in the whole of Scotland.
There may also be individuals standing.
Scotland has 6 MEPs and at the time of election they were:
- SNP – Ian Hudghton
- SNP – Alyn Smith
- Labour – David Martin
- Labour – Catherine Stihler
- Conservative – Baroness Nosheena Mobarik CBE
- UKIP (at the time of being elected) – David Coburn
This voting system is the same for England (60 MEPs divided up into regions) and Wales (4 MEPs)
Northern Ireland (3 MEPs) has a different system where you vote in order of preference (1,2,3…)
Why should I vote?
The last EU elections in the UK were in 2014 – the turnout was 35.4%. In Scotland it was even lower – 33.5%.
The electorate in Scotland who could have voted numbered 4,016,735. The number who did vote numbered 1,345,667.
No matter what you think about all the various ways of voting in our elections, this is an electoral system where your 1 vote does count because it is added to all the others cast in Scotland for which ever party you choose to vote for. There is no such thing as a ‘wasted‘ vote – please do not allow anyone to persuade you of that.
In this election you will be voting for a political party – each party will have chosen who it has on its list. Find out what these parties are saying, ask questions of them and what policies they stand for.
You may think why should I bother if we are leaving the EU?
- If the elections take place it means we have not yet left so it is important that your views continue to be represented in the European Parliament
- Scotland is one ‘region’ – the EU elections define who will be representing not just you as an individual but the nation of Scotland.
Reporter: Fiona Grahame