Electoral Registration after ILR

Hi everyone.

I have a question and I need your expertise which you guys have always provided me in the past. Let me explain my question with some background context.

Context

For some reason (unknown to me) people who have migrated from Russia or other former soviet countries like Belaur on Tier 2 visa or other visas are not allowed to register for electoral in the UK. And without electoral registration, they can get their ILR sorted too. Belarus is a country right in the middle of Europe ( on map) but not part of the EU and not part of commonwealth countries either.

Question

I have a friend who migrated to UK from Belarus and last year in Nov 2019, She got her ILR successfully. Correct me if I am wrong here but as far as I remember, electoral registration is required in order to get the British Citizenship/Naturalisation/Passport and if you do not register yourself for electoral then there are penalties for this as well. My question is that can she register herself now for the electoral register since she already has an ILR now or Home Office has special laws for Belarus or former Soviet countries?

I have read the GOV.UK page regarding who can vote and who is eligible but I could not find any answers. Please help me out here. Pointers to the written law (if possible) would be of great help.

Looking forward to your expert opinions.

Thanks.
M.Z

Correct me if I am wrong here but as far as I remember, electoral registration is required in order to get the British Citizenship/Naturalisation/Passport and if you do not register yourself for electoral then there are penalties for this as well

No there is not. You do not have to be on the electoral roll to be eligible to apply for citizenship. Where did you hear this?

ILR does not have any impact on voting rights in the UK, which is purely determined by the person's citizenship/nationality.

British, Irish, EU citizens and Commonwealth citizens (resident in the UK on any non-visit visa) have the right to vote in the UK and can register with the electoral authorities. People of other nationalities cannot, no matter what their UK immigration status is.

Section 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. wrote:(1)A person is entitled to vote as an elector at a parliamentary election in any constituency if on the date of the poll he—
(a)is registered in the register of parliamentary electors for that constituency;
(b)is not subject to any legal incapacity to vote (age apart);
(c)is either a Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland; and
(d)is of voting age (that is, 18 years or over).

Section 2. Local government electors.
(1)A person is entitled to vote as an elector at a local government election in any electoral area if on the date of the poll he—
(a)is registered in the register of local government electors for that area;
(b)is not subject to any legal incapacity to vote (age apart);
(c)is a Commonwealth citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Ireland or a relevant citizen of the Union; and
(d)is of voting age (that is, 18 years or over, except in Scotland (see subsection (1A))).

Registration as a voter in Northern Ireland also has a residential requirement (of having resided there for at least three months), but apart from that is the same as in Great Britain.

So a Japanese, Russian or Chinese person with ILR can't register to vote, while an Indian or a Nigeria student resident in the UK can, even without ILR.

Also see this thread.

mzeeshan wrote: ↑

Tue May 12, 2020 5:30 pm

electoral registration is required in order to get the British Citizenship/Naturalisation/Passport and if you do not register yourself for electoral then there are penalties for this as well.

No to both assumptions. Registering to vote is optional and not mandatory. And a non-British citizen of a country not in the EU and Commonwealth can't register anyway.

Not registering to vote can impact your credit report, but you can contact the credit agencies to insert a note into the report to state that you aren't registered to vote because you are not eligible to because of your nationality.