THOUSANDS of residents who fail to register to vote will not face threatened fines of £1,000, it has been revealed.

Letters are being sent out to all Oxfordshire homes as part of the annual programme to keep the electoral register up to date.

The Electoral Commission warns those who do not return forms face a fine of up to £1,000 – but councils said prosecutions would be too costly.

Latest figures, for 2009, show more than 23,000 Oxfordshire households are not registered to vote, out of a total of 271,131.

But no prosecutions have been brought since 2008.

In Oxford, 03,663 households out of 60,991 did not return the form, which says residents have a “legal requirement” to return it.

A city council spokesman told the Oxford Mail there was “no overriding need to prosecute” due to a high rate of returns.

A spokesman for Cherwell District Council said prosecutions are a “very intensive and costly process, which would most likely cost more than any costs recovered”.

Empty properties and foreign nationals, who cannot vote, would complicate this, he said. Latest figures show 5,711 out of 58,098 homes did not return forms.

The electoral register can be used to check credit ratings and that is “more effective than the threat of prosecution,” he said.

Some 3,374 out of 50,582 in the Vale of White Horse and 5,018 out of 56,115 in the South Oxfordshire districts did not return forms. Electoral registration officer David Buckle said: “Prosecuting individual people is a very lengthy and expensive process, the cost of which would be very difficult to justify to our taxpayers.”

West Oxfordshire District Council was not available for comment.

There were 5,628 homes in the district where forms were not returned, out of a total of 45,345.

The 2009 figures show 258 councils in England did not bring prosecutions.

Only three did – Stockton-on-Tees (41); Sunderland (20) and Allerdale (six).

The Electoral Commission website says: “If you receive a request for your registration information from your local electoral registration office then you are legally obliged to respond.

“If you do not respond, or if you provide false information, then you could receive a £1,000 fine.”

A spokesman said: “If you are not registered then you will not be able to have your say in upcoming elections.”

The register is used for elections, and “preventing and detecting” crime. Some councils send staff out to remind homes that have not responded.

An edited register is also compiled, though residents can opt out of this.

This can be sold by councils and is often used by marketing firms and sold to the public through websites like 192.com.