Prisoners Votes Act 2010

An Act to enable all convicted prisoners to be part of the democratic process by

ensuring that the principle of universal suffrage extends to all those in custody.

Be it enacted by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and
consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present
Parliament assembled, and by the same as follows:-

1. To fully comply with our obligations under the Convention, the franchise is to
be extended to all sentenced prisoners, regardless of the nature of the crime, and
length of sentence imposed by a court.
2. Prisoners will exercise their human right to vote under Article 3 of the First
Protocol of the Convention, by means of postal ballot.
3. Prisoners must register at the address they lived in immediately prior to arrest.
Those prisoners who were registered as No Fixed Abode upon entering prison
may vote from their present prison address.
4. This Act may be cited as the Prisoners Votes Act 2010.
5. This Act shall come into operation on the first day of April, 2010, from
12.01am.
6. This Act shall cease to have effect from 12.01pm on the first day of April, 2010.
7. Section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 is omitted.