NEARLY 20,000 people in Derby have been threatened with an £80 fine if they do not register to vote under a new system.
Derby City Council said the wording of letters it has sent out was prescribed in "electoral law".
The letter says: "You need to provide us with this information. If you don't you could be fined £80."
But this has been described as "harsh" by one family that has had difficulty with the changes.
The old Victorian system of registering to vote is being replaced across the UK in a bid to make it "more secure".
The current system assumes that the head of the household will provide details of any resident who is eligible to vote.
But critics said this was an approach that was open to error and abuse, reducing the accuracy of the Government's data and undermining confidence in the electoral register.
The new system, called Individual Electoral Registration (IER), makes each individual responsible for registering themselves.
Janie Berry, the council's director of legal and democratic services, said 89% of voters were moved across automatically.
Invitation to Register forms were sent to about 19,000 people and 12,750 needed to then be sent reminders. All of these notes made the point about the £80 fine.
David Stringer, 62, of Swanmore Road, Littleover, was one of two people who complained about the difficulties he was having with the process.
He and his family had to send four e-mails, made two phone calls, and received five e-mails and a letter as they tried to register under the new system.
Mr Stringer said: "We'd had lot of communication to and from the council and we got a threat of a fine. It seemed a bit harsh.
"It seems early to be sending something like that out.
"They must have had some record that the problem was in the process of being dealt with."
The family's issues have now been resolved, with Mrs Berry saying the problems were down to the council posting a form "incorrectly to Mr Stringer's address instead of his neighbour's".
Mrs Berry said: "This is a process we have to follow under IER and the wording of the letter and form is prescribed in electoral law.
"Both the invitation to register form and the reminder include an advisory note that a fine could be imposed for non-registration if the individual does not register themselves within the timescales given on the form. Those deadlines have not yet passed so no fines have been imposed."
She added: "Any revenue derived from fines is paid to the Government, not the local authority. Decisions on whether or not to impose fines will be made locally."
Mrs Berry said the council "now has to look at each individual's circumstances before we can successfully determine each registration".
It also understood that people who prefer to register using their middle name instead of first name have had problems switching over to the new system.
One family has told the Derby Telegraph that their issues with this still haven't been resolved after discovering them at the start of this month.
Mrs Berry said: "If the records don't match, we have to request further evidence to verify identity and if this isn't possible people can complete an attestation [formally declare something is the case]."
