All the excitement of Cambs elections by text

IF you want to keep up to date with all the latest news in next month s county council elections, you can do it by text message. So keen is it to get people to run out on June 4 that Cambridgeshire County Council has launched a short-message service to ke

IF you want to keep up to date with all the latest news in next month's county council elections, you can do it by text message.

So keen is it to get people to run out on June 4 that Cambridgeshire County Council has launched a short-message service to keep residents abreast of everything the council is doing to promote the local elections.

By signing up to the free service subscribers will receive free text messages over the next month from reminders to register to vote (by May 19) to finding out about what CCC claims will be "exciting podcasts".

Chief executive Mark Lloyd said: "We want as many people as possible to vote in the election on the 4 June. To do that we have to really engage with our residents to explain just how important local elections really are.

"So, along with our Facebook and Twitter pages, we have set up an SMS service to keep those who text 'election' to 81025 fully up to date. I have signed up myself, and I am really excited by the possibilities of using this new technology to get more people down to the polling stations on the June 4."

Only the initial text to subscribe to the service will be charged to the sender at the standard network rate - all other texts will be free.

Elections to the European Parliament take place on the same day. The county results will be declared on Friday June 5. The results of the Euro poll will be declared after 9pm on the following Sunday, when voting finally closes in the rest of the EU.