The Electoral Commission has set out to recruit 100,000 British expats to register to vote before the May 7 general election.
Thursday Feb 5 has been named Overseas Voter Day by the commission which says it will work with the FCO, Cabinet Office and political party networks overseas to promote the campaign via Twitter and Facebook.
Only 15,849 of the estimated 5.5 million Britons overseas were signed up to vote in UK elections as of March 2014, according to the commission.
The last recruitment drive set out to convince just 25,000 expats to register for the European and UK local elections last May. In the event, however, just 7,079 signed up.
After that, in June last year, downloading a voter registration form online at gov.uk/register-to-vote, was introduced. The form still needs to be filled in and posted back to the UK in order to arrange to vote by proxy, by post or in person.
By December last year, an additional 17,168 applications were made, according to the commission, but it is not yet known how many of these were added to the register.
Any expat who has been abroad for 15 or more years is not allowed a vote. The Conservative Party has said it will restore voting rights to all Britons abroad if it wins the next election.
Last December the prime minister made a personal plea in a mass email approach to expats on the party list saying they could hold the key to a Conservative win.
But not all expats have taken kindly to the ’15-year rule’, and some are disgruntled over frozen pensions and the axing of winter fuel allowances.
Expat Brian Cave, 82, in France for 17 years, runs a blog on topics of interest to British pensioners in Europe -
pensionersdebout.blogspot.co.uk
“I suspect the Electoral Commission will miss their target. I feel there’s b----r all relationship between the politicians and those who elect them,” he said.
“The politicians need to say ‘We are thinking of you expats and what you do for Britain and what you can do for Britain.' The nation is its people and they need to talk to the people somehow or other, not just say ‘We want your vote; will you vote?’ Otherwise why the hell should we vote?"
He also felt that many pensioners don’t bother with Facebook or Twitter so the social media promotion may pass them by.
Harry Shindler, 93, who lives in Italy and has been campaigning for full voting rights for expats, said: “I congratulate the commission and hope they can reach their target but I don’t think they will. I think it’s too ambitious because the fact that people cannot vote after 15 years does have an effect. They say ‘What’s the point of registering, I will be knocked off the register eventually.'”
Mr Shindler (pictured) recently wrote to Mr Cameron inviting him to meet with a delegation of expats from across Europe to discuss matters of concern to them ahead of the general election.
The Prime Minister replied saying that while he was “most grateful for your kind invitation to a meeting, I’m afraid that due to significant pressures on my diary in the lead up to the general election, I am unable to accept your invitation".
