Ben Rouse, Isle of Wight High Sheriff and the returning officer for the parliamentary elections on the Island and Chris Mathews, the acting returning officer, officially received the Writ from the Clerk to the Crown on Thursday ahead of next month’s General Election.
This is a crucial part of the electoral process for a general election. As parliament is dissolved, writs are hand delivered by Royal Mail managers to every constituency in the UK.
Once the count is complete following the general election on 8th June 2017, in order to formalise the result, the returning officer must write the name of the winning candidate on the Writ and return it to the Clerk to the Crown, who is based in the Houses of Parliament.
The writ was hand delivered to County Hall in Newport and handed to the returning officer at 12:30 on Thursday 4th May.
Writs are legal documents which authorise the holding of a general election or by-election. When Parliament is dissolved prior to a general election, writs are issued declaring that an election be held in each constituency.
If you want to vote in the general election, you need to make sure you are registered to vote before the deadline of Monday 22nd May 2017. If you have already registered to vote for a previous election, you will already be on the electoral register and will not need to register again.
The simplest and easiest way to check if you are registered is online at: www.gov.uk/register-to-vote and fill out the form, which takes around 5 minutes.
