Raft of Measures to Help You Vote in Person in Ribble Valley

Voters go to the polls on Thursday, 2 May, to help elect the police and crime commissioner, who has responsibility for governing Lancashire Constabulary and holding its chief constable to account.

Measures at Ribble Valley’s polling places aimed at helping you vote in person include large print ballot papers, tactile voting devices, magnifiers to increase text size, accessible polling booths and pencil grips.

You can also take your phone into the polling booth to use a magnifier or text-to-speech app, or the phone torch to improve lighting, but you are asked not take photographs.

And anyone over the age of 18 can help you cast your vote in person, even if they are not eligible to vote themselves.

A polling place is an area or building in a polling district in which a polling station is situated.

Polling places usually contain one polling station, but sometimes two.

Councils are required by law to review their polling places every five years to ensure they are meeting the needs of electors.

And Ribble Valley Borough Council undertook a sweeping review of its 56 polling places earlier this year.

Voters were asked to have their say on where they voted, how convenient their polling place was to get to, if it was accessible and whether there was adequate parking.

Ribble Valley Borough Council’s chief executive Marshal Scott, who is the borough’s returning officer, said: “Everyone should be able to cast their vote in person without facing barriers.

“And we have been working hard to ensure people are able to play their rightful part in the democratic process by voting on their own in secret at our polling stations.

“You can also now choose someone to accompany you to help you vote, or the person in charge of the polling station, known as the presiding officer, will be only too happy to help.”

Don’t forget to take photo-ID to your polling station if you are voting in person at the police and crime commissioner election.

There are numerous forms of acceptable ID, including passports, driving licences and bus passes, and you are even able to use expired ID if you are still recognisable from the photo.

But if you do not have one of the accepted forms of ID you can apply for free photo-ID, called a Voter Authority Certificate, online.

To apply for the certificate, you will need to provide a photograph, your full name, date of birth, the address at which you are registered to vote and national insurance number or other form of proof of identity, such as a birth certificate, bank statement or utility bill.

The deadline for a voter authority certificate application is 5pm on Wednesday, 24 April.

You can also download a paper application form and post it to Elections Team, Ribble Valley Borough Council, Council Offices, Church Walk, Clitheroe, Lancashire, BB7 2RA.

Or you can phone the council’s elections team on 01200 414411 or 01200 414426 to book an appointment to complete the form in person.

A full list of polling places, their accessibility and whether they have parking is available at ribblevalley.gov.uk or wheredoivote.co.uk.

• If you would prefer not to vote in person, you can vote by post or proxy (where someone votes on your behalf). New postal or proxy vote applications must be made online at electoralcommission.org.uk by 5pm on Wednesday, 17 April.