Exeter’s 91,000 registered electors go to the polls on Thursday 7 May to elect fourteen councillors to represent them on Exeter City Council, one in each of the city’s thirteen electoral wards and a second in Heavitree following a councillor resignation.
You must be on the electoral register in order to vote. Voter registration for this year’s local elections closed on 20 April.
Poll cards which say where their polling station is located have now been sent to everyone registered to vote. Electors who vote in person can only cast their ballots at the polling station specified on this card.
Postal voting ballots have also been sent to all the Exeter voters who are registered to vote this way this year.
The location of Exeter’s 55 polling stations, which will be open from 7am to 10pm on Thursday 7 May, can be found by postcode search on the city council website.
You can find out more about the 72 candidates who are standing in this year’s Exeter City Council elections below.
Any voter who arrives at their polling station before 10pm and is in a queue waiting to vote at 10pm will be able to vote.
On entering the polling station you (or your proxy) can show your poll card to the staff, or tell them your name and address instead.
You will then receive a ballot paper on which you can cast your vote by marking a cross next to the candidate you want to support in one of the available polling booths, before folding your ballot paper and placing it in a ballot box.
Voters in Exeter’s Heavitree ward can cast two votes this year by marking a cross next to each of two candidates they want to support.
You do not need a poll card to vote, provided you are on the electoral register. However you now need to produce an accepted form of photo ID to vote in person following the Elections Act 2022.
UK passports, driving licenses, blue badges and some travel passes qualify, as do voter authority certificates. The deadline to apply for a voter authority certificate passed yesterday.
Exeter City Council electoral wards map. Contains Ordnance Survey and National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right
Proxy voters – registered voters who have been appointed to vote on behalf of another elector – must also vote at the specified polling station unless they have instead made arrangements to vote by post.
They must also produce an accepted form of photo ID to verify their identity, but do not need to verify the identity of the elector(s) on whose behalf they are voting.
The deadline for proxy vote registrations also passed yesterday.
If you missed this deadline you may be able to apply to vote by emergency proxy due to disability or because of employment circumstances, in which case your application to do so must be submitted by 5pm on polling day.
Applications for replacement spoilt or lost postal votes can also be submitted until 5pm on polling day.
The Elections Act 2022 also introduced regulations which mean postal votes can no longer be posted through the Exeter civic centre letterbox in Paris Street.
They can still, however, be handed in to an authorised person at the city council office reception during opening hours, or at any Exeter polling station on polling day.
Postal voters wishing to do either must now complete an extra form in person, and are limited to handing in no more than five postal votes for other electors in addition to their own.
The rules regarding the return of postal votes via Royal Mail remain unchanged. In any case they must arrive by 10pm on polling day.
Riverside Leisure Centre 2025 Exeter local elections count
When all Exeter’s polling stations have closed on Thursday 7 May, the city’s ballot boxes will be taken to the Riverside Leisure Centre so ballot papers can be verified then counted.
The results will be announced in the early hours of Friday morning.
