Things to bring with you:
- Please bring your photographic ID with you to the polling station.
- It is helpful if you bring your Poll Card with you, but it is not essential. If you bring your Poll Card with you, please take it home to destroy securely. Please don't leave it at the Polling Station.
- You may bring your own pen or pencil.
Things to remember:
- Please maintain a one metre distance from the person in front of you in the queue, for privacy reasons, when showing ID.
- Please be patient as you may have to wait a little longer, while the staff check everyone's ID.
- Once you have voted, please leave as quickly as possible.
- You don't have to give your elector number to the people outside the polling station.
- Please take your poll card home with you, to safely destroy at home.
Changes to Postal Vote Handling process
Important: changes to postal vote arrangements
The Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex election takes place on Thursday 2 May, and postal votes have now started being sent out.
This election brings with it an important change in the rules around the handing in of postal votes.
While we expect most people with a postal vote will continue to send it in via a Royal Mail post box - the process for which is unchanged - some drop them off direct to us at the council offices.
And this is where the change comes in.
Anyone bringing in a postal vote will now have to complete a postal vote return form. If they do not do this, the postal vote will be rejected.
The form will also need to be countersigned, so it cannot just be completed and left. A member of our reception team will need to go through it with the individual bringing it in.
There is also now a maximum number of postal votes that can be handed in, which is five plus your own.
And political campaigners are no longer allowed to hand in postal votes unless they all belong to close relatives or people they provide regular care to.
To help the public through these changes, our reception at Princes Road is open every weekday between 9am and 4pm until election day. Staff will be on hand and postal vote return forms will be available.
A notice will go on our letterbox explaining that any postal vote posted through it will be rejected.
The exact same rules for completing a postal vote return form also apply to anyone who returns a postal vote at a polling station on election day.