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What voters need to know for Thursday, May 5

With the Scottish Parliamentary Election and a UK-wide referendum taking place on Thursday, (May 5) Aberdeenshire Council is reminding local voters of what they need to know to have their say on polling day.

• Polling stations will be open from 7am – 10pm. You should have received a card with details of your local polling station. If not, please call: (01224) 664848

• When voting at a polling station, it’s helpful to take your poll card with you. But if you don’t have it, don’t let that stop you – you can still vote as long as you are on the register.

• Polling station staff will give most voters ballot papers for the Scottish Parliamentary Election and for the UK-wide referendum, unless you are ineligible to vote in one or the other. Staff will not be able to give you ballot papers after 10pm, so do arrive in good time.

• The referendum is on the voting system used for elections to the UK Parliament and the question being put to voters on Thursday, May 5 is: “At present, the UK uses the ’first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the ‘alternative vote’ system be used instead?”

• Explanations of these voting systems are available at www.aboutmyvote.co.uk or you can order a copy of the Electoral Commission public information booklet on 0800 3 280 280. Staff will not be able to provide this information at polling stations.

• If you applied for a postal vote, it needs to be received by the Returning Officer by 10pm on Thursday, May 5. If you have left it too late to post back, you can drop it off at a polling station within your constituency or at the local council offices at St Leonard’s in Banff, Gordon House in Inverurie or Viewmount in Stonehaven.

In the Scottish Parliamentary election, voters in Aberdeenshire will be able to cast their vote for who they want to represent them in either the Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Aberdeenshire East or Aberdeenshire West Constituencies, as well as the North East Scotland region.

At this election, however, some Aberdeenshire Council residents are in the Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, and Angus North and Mearns Constituencies.

Eligible voters in the Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Aberdeenshire East and Aberdeenshire West Constituencies can check the location of their polling station on Aberdeenshire Council’s Where To Vote webpage at: http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/elections/where_to_vote.asp

For elections information, including advice on how to vote, alternative voting methods, links to electoral organisations and some short explanatory video clips, please see: www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/elections

To follow the council's Twitter account, where you can get live updates on election day from the count venue itself, see: www.twitter.com/aberdeenshire

Information on elections and related matters is also available from the Electoral Commission, whose website can be found here: www.electoralcommission.org.uk

For more information, visit www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

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