Dear Supporter of our Vote Denied campaign,

Five years after we exposed the vote denied scandal at the European elections, hundreds of thousands of UK voters abroad risk being denied their vote in the UK General Election because their ballot papers did not arrive in time.

Following a ten year campaign, led by the late Harry Shindler MBE, we were successful in having the 15 year rule abolished which prevented UK citizens who had been living overseas for longer than this from voting in UK elections.

Since then, tens of thousands of UK citizens living overseas have been registering to vote in time for the UK General Elections.

To vote from abroad, you need to apply for a postal vote and members have been contacting us to say they are concerned they will not receive their ballot papers in time to send them back so that they arrive before polling date. 

Ballots that arrive after polling day will not be counted and that person will have had their vote denied.

It was avoidable administrative 'hiccups' like this that meant over 1.6 m EU citizens had their votes denied in the European elections in 2019. 

It is unconscionable that we should be here again, this time with so many UK citizens likely to be denied the vote.

To address these concerns, we have teamed up with Unlock Democracy and also the British Overseas Voters Forum to launch a survey of UK overseas voters. 

Investigation launched into postal voting ahead of 4 July election

We aim to find out when overseas votes received their postal vote packs in various countries around the world, when they were sent back and whether they arrived in time to be counted.

Your help with this campaign would be hugely appreciated. 

If you are a British overseas voter yourself, please take part in the survey using this link  |  Postal Votes Survey

Please also continue to chip in what you can to our campaign fund so we can reach more people |  Chip in here

Your support will mean we have much greater impact when we share our survey results with the Electoral Commission and politicians.

This will give us a better chance to expose the scale of this new vote denied scandal affecting so many UK citizens abroad and secure remedial action.

With thanks again for all your support.

Roger Casale

CEO, New Europeans UK