Voting tomorrow

Polling stations are open tomorrow from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Some polling stations have changed, especially in Surbiton Hill, which now has three polling places, whereas previously it has only had two.

The polling places are at St. Matthew’s School, St. Matthew’s church and the Corner House theatre in Douglas Road. Please check the Poll Card you received from the Council to make sure you go to the right place first time.

You will be given two ballot papers, one for the Council election and one for the European Parliament election. They are of different colours and the European parliament election paper is VERY long. It lists all the political parties putting up candidates. Their names are listed next to the name and symbol of the party. The parties are listed in alphabetical order of their names. You are asked to vote for the whole party list and you can only mark a cross against ONE party.

The Council election papers are also quite long as three Councillors are being elected for each ward. Candidates are listed in the alphabetical order of their surnames, NOT in the order of their political party. You have up to three votes, you do not HAVE to vote for all the candidates of one party if you don’t wish to. If you DO wish to you may have to spend a little time finding the candidates for the party you wish to support. Please do NOT write anything on the ballot paper other than the voting mark (X) as this may spoil it and result in your vote not being counted. If you do make a mistake and spoil your paper you should return it to the person who gave it to you and ask for another one.

If you have postal vote which you have not used but you still wish to vote, you should take the completed forms and ballot papers with you to your nearest polling place and hand them all in to the officer in charge or take them to Kingston Guildhall. They must be accepted at polling stations until the polls close at 10 p.m..