Updating our list of Absent Voters

Postal Votes are vitally important if we are to win!

In recent years there has been a big increase in the number of people who vote by post.  In some recent Council elections we've seen more than half of the votes being cast by postal voters. This people are an important group we need to contact - not just at election time but all year round. 

As a registered political party we are entitled to be given, at no charge, a data file of the full list of Absent Voters. These are the people who can vote without coming into the Polling Station on Election day. 

Strictly speaking the term “Absent Voters” (AV's) means everyone who does not need to come to the Polling Station on Poll Day so includes not only Postal Voters but also Proxy and Postal Proxy voters - (where someone nominates another person to vote on their behalf). Perhaps because the vast majority of AVs are Postal Voters, sometimes the phrases are informally used interchangeably (including on Connect!) - do check what is actually meant.

The electoral register data is uploaded to Connect's My Voters database centrally - including rhe monthly updates, but NOT the Absent Voters. The list of Absent Voters needs to be obtained and uploaded by someone from the local team. It's usually necessary to make some changes to the data file to allow Connect to accept it so someone who is comfortable with using Microsoft Excel or similar would be ideal for the task.

This guide sets out step-by-step how to carry out the job. We recommend that the full task as described be carried out annually just after the full register has been updated by HQ. Then during the year, e.g. just prior to the start of a major election campaign, we can obtain a fresh list of Absent Voters from the council and upload it.

The steps:

1. Ask the Council to send us a data file of the current Absent Voters for the whole of the Borough.
2. Check the data file to see if it has the columns we need, and if not to make any alterations ready for uploading.
3. Within Connect, make a backup copy of existing Absent Voters as a saved list
4. Ask HQ to clear your current Absent Voters (there's a fomr to do so)
5. Upload the new data to Connect
6. Carefully check all is well

The party has comprehensive guidance online at https://tech.libdems.org.uk/training/connect/toolkit/bulk-uploads which should answer most questions but the notes below may help.

Notes

1. Get the data file

A few days before you plan to update Connect, ask the Electoral Services department at your local council to send you a data file of the current Absent Voters for your local authority.  (it is possible to do smaller areas, e.g. an individual Westminster Constiuency, but we recommend you do the whole Local Authority at once.).  The council have a legal duty to provide this data (there's normally no problme at all) but may ask to see some suitable authority such as a DNO (Delegated Nominating Officer) certificate.  There is no charge for this data.

2. Check the data file

Open the file and look at the columns of data. For Connect import you must have the polling district and polling number in separate columns - but the data files often have them combined in one column for example ABC-123 where the Polling District (ABC) is separated from the Polling Number by a dash (-).  This is easily resolved by using Excel's “Text to Columns” feature which you can find in the Data menu. Create a new column to the right of the existing data; select the original column; click “Text to Columns” in the data menu, In the first step your data will usually be delimited.  In step 2 set the Delimiter to be the dash (-) or whatever character is used in your data file. In step 3 set the column wiht the new polling number to be a text column, not a number, so we can cope with poll numbers like 24/1 (and not allow Excel to interpet it as a date).  Save the result as a Text file.

Sometimes the data supplied by the council has inconsistent data columns - a format probably intended for printing and not for data import.  If that's the case, ask the council for a different format or seek advice wihtin the party eg email campaigns@londonlibdems.org.uk)

Your data file may have a column specifying the type of Absent Vote - ef Postal, Proxy, Postal Proxy etc. There amy also be a column for wther this is a Permanent or Temporary (often with an “end date”). If you're comfortable with this you can use that to precisely map the data into Connect but in practice it will make little different if you upload everyone as a Postal Voter. 

3. Save existing Absent Voter data

(Remember to be in the My Voters database within Connect)

Create a list of all current Absent Voters and save this in a folder within Connect - you may wish to create a new folder for this purpose.  This is siply so that if there are any problems, you will be able to quickly restore the previous data.

4. Ask HQ to clear existing data

Complete this form and submit it.  The data is usually cleared within an hour or two.

https://tech.libdems.org.uk/connect/submit-a-request-to-clear-postal-voters

Once you've checked it has been done you can move on.  This is an important step to complete once a year, just after the new electoral roll has been uploaded by HQ; for later updates later in the year this step is often omitted as it's not very common for people to cancel their postal votes mid year.

5. Upload your new file to Connect

As with all bulk uplods, you need to set up two mappings. The first identifies the voter (you'll specify the Local Authority then map the Polling Distrcit and Polling Number).  Then the second mapping instructs Connect what to do to that voter - in our case mark them as an Absent Voter.

6. Check the data

Create and run a list for all voters in your local authority.  Use Counts with the top Counts and Cross Tabs option (not the “with format” option) and set up the display to have Ward in Column 1 and Postal Vote Type in Section 1, Column 1, Refresh Results to see the table and review what ytou see.  “Unknown” means the number of people NOT marked as an Absent Voter. 

I hope the above helps you get your data updated efficiently. If you hit a snag, please do review the notes above and the party training guide as linked above.  However if you still cannot resolve your issue you can contact the (small!) HQ team using support@libdems.org.uk

Pete Dollimore

31st March 2025