We hold the national printed electoral register collection from when they were first produced under the Representation of the People Act 1832 to the present.
About the collection
Electoral registers are lists of names of people entitled to vote during the lifetime of the register (usually one year). Our collection is complete for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from 1947 onwards, but patchy before World War II. Registers were not published during the latter years of World War I (1916–1917) or World War II (1940–1944).
Because of new regulations, two versions of the electoral register have been produced since 2003:
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the full version of the register contains the names of all voters and is used primarily to support the electoral process. Public access to it is strictly controlled and the data can only be used for research purposes
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the open register, also known as the edited register, is available for sale for commercial use for direct marketing, advertising, etc. It omits the names of electors who have exercised their right to opt out to protect their privacy.
We hold the full version of the register only.