How does voting work?

It's 24 September (election day), you have your polling card (basically a letter telling you that you can vote) or your postal vote. Great. 

If you’re voting in person, you’ll do it at a place called a Polling Station. There will be details of where yours are on your polling card. You can vote at any polling station in your area (constituency) but remember if you live in Castletown and your friend lives in Douglas you won’t be voting at the same place - so don’t try. 

If there are more candidates than there are seats (so more than 2) in your area then you will get to vote. If there are 2 candidates or fewer, then the election is uncontested, you won’t get to vote and those candidates will automatically get in (but that doesn’t happen very often at a General Election). 

On the 24 September you head to the polling station between 8am and 8pm, you do not need ID and don’t worry if you forget your polling card - all you will need to do is remember your name. Once you’re inside the staff will be on hand to help. 

If you’re voting by post, you can mark your ballot anywhere, at home, on a bus, on the boat or at Peri Peri Victoria Grill. Once you’ve filled it in, follow the instructions on it and send it off by the deadline. 

Great, but how does voting actually work and what is a ballot paper? 

A ballot paper is what you actually use to vote with. It will list all of the candidates who are standing in your area. 

 If you are familiar with the UK’s elections, you will know that they use a system called First-Past-the-Post - we DO NOT USE THAT in the Isle of Man. 

At a Manx election, you have two votes, meaning you can vote for up to two candidates.  To indicate who you want to vote for we recommend you draw a cross in the box next to the people you support.  

You can only vote for each candidate once but you do not need both of your votes. If you like one candidate you can just vote for one, if you don’t like any you can spoil your ballot (that means not voting for anyone or drawing a picture of the Moddey Dhoo fighting Alf Cannan on your polling card). 

Once the polls have closed, the votes are counted. Staff hired specifically to count the votes will sort them into piles. 

The candidates with the two highest vote totals will be elected. Candidates do not need a majority of the votes, they just need to be in the top two. If two candidates have the same number of votes then the head of the election staff in that area will draw lots (but that doesn’t happen very often). 

Once this is done, the successful candidates will be announced and at the next sitting of the House of Keys they will be sworn in. 

Want to make sure you can vote?

If you’re planning to vote in the Isle of Man General Election - make sure you’re registered. You can register or find out if you are registered here. 

The deadline for registering to vote is 25 August 2026. If you’re not registered by then you won’t be able to vote on election day. 

Want to know more about the election?

This is just one in our series of short blogs explaining what the hell is happening on 24 September 2026. You can read the rest of the blogs here.