At this summer’s general election, only just over half of the votes of all registered postal voters living overseas were counted. Many were denied that right. But as a new report demonstrates, solutions are at hand.

Everyone’s vote should count. That’s a line you often hear from advocates of electoral reform, myself included. 

To say that some votes don’t matter – or in other words, have no impact on the result – is a fair criticism of the way UK elections currently operate. 

The suggestion is not usually that some votes literally don’t count. But this time, that is precisely what I’m saying.

At the last general election, tens of thousands of overseas citizens’ votes did not count. Not because they hadn’t registered in time. Not because they didn’t fill in the ballot correctly.

Their right to vote was effectively revoked because, as two recent reports have laid bare, postal systems around the world can’t get their ballots to them and back again in time for their votes to be counted. 

For the sixth UK-wide election in a row, the Electoral Commission found “significant difficulties” facing overseas voters. 1 in 2 of these were registered to vote by post.

Yet, according to the Electoral Commission, only 52% of postal votes issued to overseas voters ended up being counted.

Some, perhaps, chose not to vote after all. But 48% abstaining? After having registered? Clearly not.

What prevented many of the votes of the 48% counting was, predictably, the time it takes for ballots to reach overseas voters and be returned to the UK. Just as it was in 2019. Of that election, the Electoral Commission noted that “the most frequently mentioned concern in feedback from overseas electors was about not receiving their postal vote in time.” 

This year, 51% of overseas voters who responded to the Electoral Commission’s survey were dissatisfied with the process for voting at the general election, again citing “the time available for receiving and returning their postal vote.”

During the election, Unlock Democracy worked with the New Europeans and British Overseas Voters’ Forum to document how long ballot papers took to reach overseas voters. 

One voter based in Spain told us they applied for a postal vote on the 28th March 2024, but only received it on the 17th July – almost two weeks after polls closed. Another, living in Canada, received their ballot on 5th July – the day after the election. 

Farcical stories. But by no means exceptional. In keeping with our report, the Electoral Commission found that, for a postal voter living in Spain or Canada, the odds of their vote counting were substantially reduced. In Canada, the share of postal votes that counted was 48%. In Spain, it was 32%. 

Your odds in France were a little better: 75%. But even there, our report describes the case of a resident who, despite registering for their postal vote on 17th June, still hadn’t received a ballot a week after election day making 2024 the first time since the re-election of Harold Wilson in 1966 he was unable to vote in a general election.

Postal voters in Australia may now be enjoying warmer weather than us here in the UK, but back in the summer, only 6% had a vote that counted. Strikingly, only 559 postal votes were requested from Australia. Meanwhile, over 960,000 residents there were born in England. No one can argue only 33 deserved a postal vote that counted.

These dismal figures and the general poor take-up of overseas postal voting – down from 2019 even as the eligible overseas electorate expanded to 3.5 million – are proof the current system is not working.

Proxy voting is not the answer. When you have lived abroad for many years, finding a trustworthy proxy can be impossible. Some respondents to our survey described how they travelled to the UK, rather than place their trust in international postal systems. Others, at significant personal cost, relied on courier companies to get their votes to the UK in time.

This is not acceptable. The last government expanded the franchise for overseas voters, yet retained a system that was bound to fail them and actively discourage them from casting their votes. UK citizens abroad deserve better.

The government must decide what percentage of overseas postal votes not counting is acceptable. It must then, in concert with the Electoral Commission, set a series of tests before the next election to assess if this threshold is met. If it’s not, our report sets out three paths for reform.

Most straightforward, but bringing minimal improvement, would be extending the election period to allow the candidate deadline and the cut-off date for overseas postal vote applications to be brought forward, giving more time for ballots to reach voters. As our report shows, even when overseas voters applied well in advance of the deadline, postal ballots arrived far too late – or in some instances never at all.

Another option, backed by the Electoral Commission, would be to copy the practice of many other countries and allow British overseas citizens to vote in person at UK Embassies or High Commissions. This also has some drawbacks, but could represent genuine progress.

Electronic voting, providing that security requirements can be met, would be a game changer. We wouldn’t be the first – such systems are already used by many US and New Zealand voters overseas – and it would have the biggest impact, making voting quick and easy – boosting turnout – and ensuring that votes cast count.

It could even be combined with a system of overseas constituencies, modelled on the way French, Italian, Romanian and several other countries’ overseas citizens vote. This would not only improve overseas voters’ representation, potentially boosting turnout further, but would also have the practical benefit of making the vote count easier as all the electronic votes from one overseas constituency would be electronically counted together.

For so many citizens abroad, the right to vote is illusory. Either we want them to be part of UK democracy, or we don’t. If it’s the former – and it should be – then Unlock Democracy’s report shows the way forward.

Tom Brake is the director of Unlock Democracy

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