Stephen Lambert and Habib Rahman teamed up at Newcastle Sixth College recently to run a one hour session advising students on how to make sure they have the right to vote on election day.
The session is part of the Newcastle City Council campaign to reach out to the City’s "missing voters.”
Councillor Lambert said: “Both Habib and I were delighted to meet a bright and engaging group of students aged 16 to 19 and to help to explain the new process of registering to vote. We took questions, and provide useful hand-outs about the importance of voting and the ways of doing it.”
Councillor Rahman added: “We put party politics to one side to make sure students are fully aware of what they need to do to sign up to vote. It’s really important that everyone gets themselves on the register so that they don’t miss out on election day.”
Changes to the way voter registration works has resulted in a large number of students disappearing from the Electoral Register according to the independent boy, The Electoral Commission. In the past they would have been registered by the head of a family household house or hall of residence – now they are all personally responsible for making sure they are on the register.
Latest figures show that the numbers of people of Newcastle’s electoral register are 12,500 lower than in previous years. Many of those ‘’missing voters’’ are students aged 17-24.
Signing up is simple by visiting www.gov.uk.register-to-vote
