RESIDENTS in parts of North Yorkshire are to be offered an alternative way to confirm their electoral roll details this year.

A freephone service has been set up across the UK for participating councils, allowing residents whose details are unchanged to confirm them within minutes.

Households wishing to register elector changes must complete the canvass form, and return it to the council offices as instructed.

Selby District Council and Harrogate Borough Council are among the 107 councils to participate in the new scheme.

Developed by Electoral Reform Services (ERS), Freephone registration means updates are immediate and more accurate, and councils will benefit from significant reductions in the cost of canvassing households.

For those households where the electoral roll details remain unchanged, re-registering could not be easier.

By simply dialling the Freephone number, and keying-in the special two-part security code printed on the form, the caller is prompted to confirm the household details and the call is complete.

The service is a fully-automated touch-tone system that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the canvass period.

The Freephone registration system also accommodates the new 'opt-out' rules - introduced last year - allowing users to add or remove their names from the edited version of the register used by mailing companies.

Where councils have a large population of non-English speakers, the service will be available in other languages in addition to English.

It is hoped the new system will encourage greater involvement in the democratic process so that more people will register and vote in local elections.

Karen Birdsall, senior elections officers for Harrogate Borough Council, said she hoped the process would begin next week.

She said: "We're all hoping for a really good response. This new system is good because it gives people a choice and you don't have to take the form to a post box, which must be an advantage for some people.

"I've actually phoned a trial number to see the process you have to go through, and it really is very simple."

Updated: 09:05 Thursday, July 31, 2003