You will have

three ways to vote:

Option One – At your polling station on Thursday 7th May 2026

You will be sent a poll card telling you where your polling station is. You don’t need your poll card to vote and if you lose it or don’t receive it, you can contact your local council to find out where your polling station is.

Polling stations are open from 7am to 10pm.

You do not need to show photo ID to vote in the Senedd election.

Option two – By post

Alternatively, you can vote by post, but you’ll need to register for this too.

Local councils are responsible for actually running the elections, so you need to either visit the website of your local authority or the Electoral Commission. You’ll need to fill in the voting by post form and send it back to your local authority. It must arrive by 5pm on Tuesday 21 April 2026.

Yeah – you need to apply by post to vote by post!

If you already have a postal vote, make sure it is for the Senedd election. Your postal vote may be for the UK Parliament general election only. Check with your local council now as you may need to apply for a Senedd postal vote. You will receive your ballot papers by post.

Complete and return your ballot papers, ensuring you leave enough time for them to arrive by 10pm on Thursday 7 May 2026. You can also return your ballot papers to your polling station on polling day by 10pm.

Option three – proxy vote

If you can’t vote in person, someone you trust can vote for you and you’ll tell them who to vote for. This is called a proxy vote. Anyone can be your proxy, as long as they’re registered to vote and it’s an election they’re allowed to vote.

It’s another paper form to apply for a proxy vote – you can either download a form or ask for it to be sent to you. You’ll then need to send this to your local council by 5pm, on Tuesday 28th April 2026 to vote ‘by proxy’.

On polling day, your proxy will need to go to your polling station to vote – which may be a different place than theirs! They’ll have to tell your polling station three things: their name, your name and your address. They can also apply to vote for you by post – this is called postal proxy.

For more information or to get to a postal or proxy application form, go to: Electoral Commission: Voting by Proxy  or call their helpline on 0800 3 280 280.

And sorry, although the year is 2025 and you can check the contents of your fridge on the internet, you still can’t vote online.

A quick note

You’re not allowed to take selfies in the polling booth or share pics of your votes on social media. It’s all about keeping voting secret so it can’t be influenced by other people.