Major change comes to this week’s local elections for the first time in 154 years

Some Brits can pick up a newspaper and a pint of milk as they turn out to vote in a shopping centre in this week’s local elections.

Rather than making that special trip to their local polling place to exercise their democratic right, residents of Milton Keynes will be able to vote at Midsummer Place shopping centre on May 7.

Meanwhile, people in three other parts of England were given the chance to vote over the weekend before the full-scale election takes place on Thursday.

The move means Cambridge, Tunbridge Wells and North Hertfordshire will not be limited to a single polling day.

It will mark the first major change to the way we vote since the Secret Ballot Act in 1872, which allowed Brits to vote in private for the first time.

Samantha Dixon, the Minister for Democracy, said: ‘The way we vote in person has not adapted to people’s busy lives, with voters often given no choice but to cast their ballot at strictly set polling stations within limited hours.

‘Our trials will make polling days more convenient and test out the first real changes for over 100 years, bringing our democracy into the 21st century.’

Are any other changes coming to election polling?

Future pilots could mean mobile voting stations are sent to locations like care homes, universities or community centres to make it as easy as possible to participate in elections.

Labour has also proposed allowing voters to cast their ballot at any polling place within their local authority area, instead of being limited to a single location.

Any eligible voter will be able to access the central hubs being set up for the local elections on May 7.

In Cambridge, the hubs will appear at Guildhall, The Clay Farm Centre and The Meadows Community Centre.

The locations for North Hertfordshire include Coombs Community Centre, Royston Leisure Centre and Royston Town Hall.

The central hubs for Tunbridge Wells include the Royal Victoria Place shopping centre, Vestry Hall in Cranbrook, and Paddock Wood community centre.

Traditional polling places will also operate alongside the new options, and people will still be able to choose to vote by post or proxy.

The government has pledged to publish the results of the trials later in the year, and use them to inform any future decisions about electoral reform.

Could we ever see online voting?

While countries like the USA, India, Brazil, Estonia, and others have all introduced online voting in their elections, it’s not currently available in the UK as you can only vote in person, by post or by proxy.

It’s been suggested that online voting could actually cause more problems than it might solve – with experts raising concerns that it could make voting fraud easier or that hacking or phishing could occur.

In 2005, Germany’s supreme court ruled after its elections that electronic voting was ‘unconstitutional’ because there was no way for the voter to trace their ballot.

Similarly, Ireland ditched electronic voting in 2002, citing security concerns, and in 2017, the Netherlands opted for paper over hacking worries.

Local elections will take place across England on May 7 in person, with Senedd elections in Wales and Holyrood elections in Scotland going ahead on the same day.

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