It is vitally important, in this year of a General Election, that everyone who is eligible enrols to have their name on the electoral roll.

Without this, you simply will not be allowed to vote for who runs the country - which is one of the most important and hard-won freedoms every adult in this country has.

New figures, however, show that there are almost 20,000 people missing from the electoral roll in Bradford.

Partly this is due to a shake-up that is designed to clamp down on electoral fraud. Previously, one person in a household could register each member of the family, but now each person has to register individually.

This is the right thing to do, and ensures that only the person who is registered to vote can do so come polling day. But that might have meant some people have not been registered.

The electoral roll is not just about voting in elections, either - many companies, from utilities to mobile phone operators to banks and financial institutions will use the information on the electoral roll to establish a person's identity when they are applying for finance or signing up to a service.

Of course, there is no legal requirement to sign up to the electoral roll, but for all the above reasons it makes sense. Especially as we are mere weeks away from a General Election.

It is vital that as many of us as humanly possible use our votes to determine who will run the country for the next few years. And if we don't go out and vote, as the saying goes, then we can't really complain.