General election law loophole which lets you cast your vote after polls close at 10pm
The little known law will let you cast your vote after the polls close
General Election day is here and there are just hours left to cast your vote and help determine the future of the UK.
Polling stations have been open since 7am today, with voters rushing to cast their vote and help determine the landscape of the next government.
While polls on previous days indicated Labour are set for a clear majority, with the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK battling it out for the rest, we won’t know for sure until the results start dropping in and the official count begins and there are bound to be a few surprises along the way.
Polling stations close at 10pm, after which point you can no longer vote. But there is a way around this rule.
The official Electoral Commission handbook states that polling must close at 10pm, but anybody who is eligible to vote who is either in the polling station or in the queue after 10pm will still be allowed to vote, even if it’s past 10pm, as long as they joined the queue before 10pm.
In which case, it’s absolutely still worth going to the polling station late on to cast your vote, even it it’s not until 9.55pm.
The law states: “Polling must close at 10pm, but any eligible electors who at 10pm are in their polling station, or in a queue outside their polling station for the purposes of voting must be allowed to vote. If a person is in the polling station or in a queue outside the polling station by 10pm for the purposes of returning a postal vote, they may do so after 10pm.”
So if you don’t get there until late tonight, don’t let staff put you off voting, as long as you were queueing by 9.59pm, you legally must be allowed to vote.
