County Council Election – Thursday 1 May 2025

On Thursday 1 May 2025, residents in Oxfordshire will be able to vote in the County Council Election. Some county councils have had their elections postponed by the government following re-organisation proposals, that doesn’t apply in Oxfordshire.

In this election you will vote to elect the individual to represent your electoral division on Oxfordshire County Council to help make decisions locally on important issues such as adult and children’s social care, education and learning, fire and rescue and public health and prevention

For further details see Oxfordshire County Council Election 2025 at oxfordshire.gov.uk.

Notices

The following section will contain the relevant notices for this election, published according to the statutory timetable:

• Notice of Election

County electoral divisions and boundary review

There are 69 divisions across the county and 15 of those are within South Oxfordshire. We will administer the elections to those 15 divisions.

The new divisions boundaries may be different from 2021 and you may be voting in a different division. This is because the County Council had a division boundary review since its last elections in 2021 and the number of divisions allocated to South Oxfordshire increased from 12 to 15.

Information for voters:

Key deadlines for this election

• You must be registered to vote by – midnight on Friday 11 April 2025
• New postal vote and postal proxy vote applications – 5pm on Monday 14 April 2025
• Changes to existing postal and postal proxy vote arrangements –5pm on Monday 14 April 2025
• Voter Authority Certificate (voter ID) applications – 5pm on Wednesday 23 April 2025
• New proxy vote applications – 5pm on Wednesday 23 April 2025

To vote in this election you must:

• be registered on the electoral register
• be 18 or over on the day of the election (‘polling day’)
• be a British or Irish citizen, or 
• you have permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man – or you do not need permission – and you’re a:
  • Commonwealth citizen
  • citizen of Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal or Spain
  • citizen of another EU country, if you have had permission to enter or stay – or not needed permission – since 31 December 2020, and this has continued without a break
• not be legally excluded from voting

Register to vote

To vote on Thursday 1 May you need to be registered by midnight on Friday 11 April. If you are not already registered at your current address you can do so now at gov.uk/register-to-vote.

British citizens living or working abroad can also register online at the Government’s Register to Vote webpage. Once your application has been processed, you should consider applying for a postal or proxy vote (details below). Please note that if you are living overseas, you may not be entitled to vote in all types of UK elections.

If you are not sure whether you are registered, you can check by contacting our Electoral Services team using the details at the bottom of this page. 

Who can you vote for?

County Councillors are elected using the First Past the Post system. You vote once for a candidate in your local electoral division and the individual with the most votes becomes your County Councillor.

We will publish the details of those standing for election by 4pm on Thursday 3 April.

If you are not sure which electoral division you live in, or what candidates are standing in your division, please visit the Who Can I Vote For website.

How you can vote:

Vote at a polling station

You can vote at your designated polling station on Thursday 1 May between 7am and 10pm.

If you are registered to vote, you will be sent a poll card a few weeks before the election that will tell you where you need to go to cast your ballot. You can find your polling station on your poll card or by entering your postcode on the Where Do I Vote website.

• To vote at a polling station you must bring photo ID with you – a wide range of photo ID will be accepted, including passports, driving licences and cards with a PASS Mark – see the full list of accepted ID on the Electoral Commission website. 
• If you don’t have the accepted photo ID – click here to apply NOW for a free voter ID document known as a Voter Authority Certificate on the Electoral Commission website. The deadline for applications for this election is 5pm on Wednesday 23 April.
• Please help friends and family members who may not have access to the internet or who may struggle to upload a photo for their ID application.

If you have not received a poll card by 2 April, you can contact our team on 01235 422528 to check whether you are registered to vote.

To find out more about voting a polling station, please see our vote at your local polling station page.

Vote by post

If you are unable to get to your polling station on election day, you can instead apply to vote by post.

Please click here to apply online to vote by post – applications close at 5pm on Monday 14 April 2025.

• You should return your completed postal pack using a Royal Mail post box as soon as possible.  
• We must receive your completed postal voting pack by 10pm on Thursday 1 May, otherwise your vote will not count.
• Postal packs are sent in two issues – the first issue of postal packs will be mailed on 15 April (for anyone who has applied before 1 April 2025). Successful applications processed after 1 April 2025 will have postal packs mailed on 17 April 2025.

• If you have not received your postal ballot pack by Friday 25 April, you can call 01235 422528 to request a replacement.  Please note, we are not able to issue replacements before Friday 25 April.
• If you miss the post, you can hand your postal pack in at our Abbey House council office in Abingdon (during office hours only) or at a polling station on election day until 10pm – however, the person handing it in is now required to complete further documentation.   Your postal vote will be rejected if it’s not received correctly – please DO NOT leave it in any council office post box or unattended reception point.
• If you make a mistake when filling in your postal pack, you can cross this out (don’t use Tipp-Ex!) and write in the correct information – please just make any amendments clear.

Several new rules have recently been introduced for postal voting, including re-application requirements – for more information, please visit our page on voting by post.

Vote by proxy

If you are unable to get to your polling station on election day, you can instead apply to allow someone you trust to vote on your behalf – this is known as a proxy vote.

Please click here to apply online for a proxy vote – applications close at 5pm on Wednesday 23 April 2025.

• Before submitting your application, please check that the person you are nominating as your proxy is also registered and eligible to vote in the election on your behalf.

• If you vote by proxy, your nominated proxy will need to go to your local polling station and take their own photo ID. If they do not have photo ID, they can apply for a Voter Authority Certificate.  

For more information, visit our page on proxy voting.

Are you voting for the first time?

If this is the time you will be voting, please look at our first-time voter’s guide.  This contains lots of useful information on how elections work, how you can vote and what happens on election day.

Counting the votes and declaring the results

The votes in this election will be counted on Friday 2 May. 

The results will be announced as they happen on Oxfordshire County Council’s website.

Information for candidates and agents

A briefing for candidates and agents will be held by Oxfordshire County Council – please visit the county council’s website for more information about briefing dates and to find out what being a councillor involves on Oxfordshire County Council’s website.

Slides from the Candidates and Agents Briefing, which took place 6 March can be downloaded by following this link.

Nominations

Anyone wishing to stand as a candidate in the Oxfordshire County Council elections will need to complete a nomination paper and submit it to the relevant district authority for that division.

For divisions in South Oxfordshire or Vale of White Horse, nomination papers must, by law, be delivered in person (but this does not have to be by the candidate) to the appointed Deputy Returning Officer at Meeting Room Wing, Abbey House, Abbey Close, Abingdon, OX14 3JE between 10am and 4pm on any day (excluding Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays) from Tuesday 25 March 2025 but no later than 4pm on 2 April 2025. 

You can obtain a nomination form and guidance from the Electoral Commission’s website.

We also would recommend that you ask for an informal check when submitting your nomination form, so that we can help make sure you have filled everything in correctly prior to the formal check.

It is best if you submit your nomination form sooner rather than later for an informal check, as if errors are found near to the deadline, it may be too late for you to get them corrected and your nomination may have to be rejected.