Anxiety about electoral roll access

With various elections coming up, I have noticed political leaflets from a range of political parties who are standing for election in the local area, have been put through my letter box, some them other are just ordinary political leaflets but some have my name and address on them.

In the past I have had political leaflets with the name of the previous occupant of the flat (long after she left) and political leaflets for a neighbour misdelivered to my address rather than his (if political leaflets addressed to him have been put through my letter box could political leaflets addressed to me have been put through other people's letterboxes? - a stressful thought).

As a floating voter, I am interested in reading what policies the political parties have but I can't see why they should have access to the electoral roll in order to send political leaflets to people, why can't they just send leaflets out in the same way as other advertising flyers. Would people want for example an extreme political party which they didn't like or were frightened of to have their name and address?

Someone has put up a petition about this on the UK government petitions website.

"Require voter consent for political parties to access electoral register data":


https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/764490

Parents
  • I think there are two electoral roles, one is public and one is private. I used to always just go on the private one, but then annoyingly, credit agencies use the public one, so to get a better credit score, I had to go back on the public one. 

    I'm not so keen on all the flyers either, I've just recycled them, I'd rather find the info myself anyway! But I agree, I prefer it when they are general than when they come in an envelope with your name on it -post is stressful, and more so when it's something you don't want to look at!

Reply
  • I think there are two electoral roles, one is public and one is private. I used to always just go on the private one, but then annoyingly, credit agencies use the public one, so to get a better credit score, I had to go back on the public one. 

    I'm not so keen on all the flyers either, I've just recycled them, I'd rather find the info myself anyway! But I agree, I prefer it when they are general than when they come in an envelope with your name on it -post is stressful, and more so when it's something you don't want to look at!

Children
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