What was claimed
You are allowed to register to vote twice—once at home and once at university.
Our verdict
Correct.
You can register to vote in two places
29 October 2019
What was claimed
If you are registered to vote in two places you are allowed to vote in both places during local elections.
Our verdict
Correct, provided that they are in separate local authorities.
What was claimed
If you are registered to vote in two places you are only allowed to vote in one location in national elections but can choose which at the last minute.
Our verdict
Correct.
A screenshot of a tweet by science writer Dr Ben Goldacre claiming that students can register to vote at two addresses has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook.
This is correct. It is possible to register to vote at two addresses if, for example, you are a student with different home and term-time addresses.
In a general election , you can only vote in one of the places where you are registered to vote. As that is one election, you are only allowed one vote. But, as the post correctly says, you can choose which of the two areas to vote in, and can make that decision on election day.
In local elections you are allowed to vote in both areas—provided they are not in the same local authority—because each local authority vote is counted as a separate election.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as true because you are allowed to register to vote in two areas.