Referendum in tandem with the general election

Question

Is it possible for a Parish Council to run a referendum in tandem with voting for the general election?  There’s an important subject about which our Parish Council would like to know the opinion of its parishioners. If it’s allowed it would be an excellent opportunity to ask the voters who visit our village hall polling station if they would mind telling us their opinion in a voluntary anonymous vote.

Answer 1

Contact your Local Authority Electoral Registration Officer for a definitive answer.
If it is anything other than “no” I’d be surprised but they will give you a definitive answer.

Answer 2

Highly unlikely at this late stage. Depending on the size of your parish and population perhaps a questionnaire delivered to each household or even posted to each household with either collection or responses via your website or collected by hand might be more efficient to get a true feeling from the community. Of course this is usually reliant on volunteer labour but isn't that what communities are all about. Carrying our a referendum this close after a general election might suffer somewhat from voter fatigue

Answer 3

A true referendum, such as one associated with a neighbourhood development plan for example, would need to be run by your elections office rather than the parish and I'd suggest it's too late to add it to the diary for the general election on 4th July.  If this is just the parish asking residents for their opinion, you wouldn't be able to do that through the polling station in conjunction with the general election and probably couldn't just sit someone outside the polling station to canvas residents as there are rules about who can and can't be within a certain distance from the polling booths.

Answer 4

It's also worth bearing in mind that the turnout for a general election is rarely above 60% and in my constituency, around half of those vote by post, so a referendum at a polling station may only reach a minority of your residents.