Who can vote for what bodies?

The basic answer is that the election register combines six different categories of voters with differing entitlements to vote in different elections. All qualified voters who have registered and can vote in at least one set of elections appear are on the list but those ineligible to vote at the election in question at the polling station in question are crossed out.

More detail required? Sure.

Broadly there are three different franchises in this country:

• The local & devolved government franchise for electing councils, police & crime commissioners and devolved parliaments & assemblies.
• The Westminster franchise for electing the House of Commons.
• The European Parliament franchise for electing members of the European Parliament.

• (No letter) – Citizens of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Commonwealth countries (including Cyprus and Malta) who have all three franchise.
• E – Ex pat members of the House of Lords who have the European Parliament franchise only.
• F – Ex pats who moved abroad from the United Kingdom in the last fifteen years who have the Westminster and European Parliament franchises (in the constituency of their last registered address) but not the local government franchise.
• G – Citizens of other European Union countries (excluding the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta covered above) who only have the local government franchise unless they’ve completed a further stage…
• K – Citizens of other European Union countries (excluding the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta covered above) who have completed, returned & had processed a formal declaration (called the UC1 form, although annoyingly not on the form itself, or the “European Union citizens – European Parliament voter registration form (GB)” in Great Britain and the EC6 form, a code that does appear on it, or the “EUROPEAN UNION CITIZENS – EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT VOTER REGISTRATION FORM (NI)” in Northern Ireland) to state that they will be exercising their vote for the European Parliament in the United Kingdom and not in their country of citizenship, and thus have both the local government franchise and the European Parliament franchise.
• L – Members of the House of Lords who have both the local government franchise and the European Parliament franchise but not the Westminster franchise for the House of Commons.

 There are also two letters relating to how votes cast:

• A – Indicates a voter who has applied for a postal vote and thus cannot vote at the polling station.
• P - Proxy – a vote has proxied their vote for someone else to cast it on their behalf.

• Local & devolved government – (No letter), G, K, L
• Westminster – (No letter), F
• European Parliament – (No letter), E, F, K, L