EU citizens in the UK are being denied their democratic right to vote in the European elections because of administrative errors by local councils.

EU nationals across the country have been reporting that they arrived at polling booths only to find their names crossed out with officials confirming they were not eligible to vote.

Astrid Hampe-Nathaniel, a German and Italian citizen, who has lived in London for years was told to go to vote in her own country after discovering that her name had been “crossed off” the register. She says the administrative chaos was “silencing” EU citizens.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Astrid Hampe-Nathaniel at a polling station in London, after being denied a vote.

I decided to vote here because I have lived in London for years and I felt like I should express my opinion here as a voter. I registered according to usual procedures and got a written confirmation to say I was registered. Because of concerns about the second form, I called the electoral services on 6 May and they said you can vote. I went to the polling station with my husband who is British. He was allowed to vote and I was not. My name was crossed off, and they said you can’t vote. They told me ‘why don’t you vote in your own country’, as if the UK wasn’t my own country. It was completely a feeling of being a foreigner in my own home. So they suggested I could call the embassy. I said deadlines are long passed to register for [absentee voting] with the German embassy, and in Italy you have to go in person. They said maybe you could take a flight, literally suggested I should take a plane there to vote on Sunday.

Hampe-Nathaniel is currently contacting the German embassy to see if it could offer last-minute voting rights, and her council to see if there was anything it could do to restore her voting rights.

I feel particularly upset as I have been doing a lot of campaigning, spent the last week putting leaflets through letterboxes, and I was looking forward to today. In my opinion this is a way of silencing a group of voters.

Markus, 31, is a Swedish entrepreneur who has lived in the UK since last November. He registered to vote in London, and last week rang the council to confirm he was eligible to vote. On Thursday he was turned away.

This morning I arrived at my polling station around 9am, they found me on their paper but my name had been crossed off and there was a G next to it. I was given the information that I wasn’t going to be allowed to vote because I hadn’t filled in a form. I explained I had registered online and sent in the form. Because I did it close to the deadline, I also called my council on Monday last week to confirm my papers had been received in time. Seeing as I live here in London, this is where I wanted to vote. But if they hadn’t arrived, I would still have been able to register to vote in the Swedish embassy. However they confirmed they had received the forms and that I would be eligible to vote.

Play Video 2:25 'Our voice has been denied': German citizens in UK told they cannot vote – video

So this morning I called the council again, the same number as last week. Today they said they can see that I’m registered, but they haven’t received my form and so I won’t be able to vote. It’s very frustrating that first they said everything was OK last week, then they turned around today and said I am not eligible to vote. I can’t think what I should have done differently. The one purpose of that call last week was to make sure my papers had been received in time. If they hadn’t that would have been unfortunate, but I would still be able to vote. Now I am disenfranchised in both countries. The council should be able to see what went wrong. I asked them to listen back to the recordings from last week, but one guy said to me: ‘I can tell you one thing for sure, you will not be able to vote today.’ This kind of mistake really isn’t acceptable.

Petros Diveris is a Greek citizen, who has lived in the UK for 23 years and never had a problem voting in previous EU elections. He considered the vote on Thursday “the most important of my life” and was devastated when he was turned away.

To be honest with you, I felt like the whole country had spat on me. I am 52 years old, I’ve been working since I was 16 and I am supposedly tough, and yet here I am today finding myself between crying, and being so angry that I worry about my blood pressure.

He described a catch-22 situation, where election officers told them he should have alerted the council when he didn’t receive the so-called UC1 form, even though he hadn’t been informed it was required.

My name was on the list but it was crossed out, and with a G next to it. I didn’t know if it meant that I am Greek, or something else, but the bottom line was they said that I couldn’t vote because I hadn’t sent them back a form. I had never received that form. And I couldn’t ask about the missing form, because I had no idea that it existed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Petros Diveris at the polling station where he was turned away from “the most important vote of my life”.

Diveris said the day had left him questioning whether he could still live in the UK, and wondering if he could still trust British institutions.

That for me was the most important vote of my life. They sent me an email saying I can vote next time, but which next time? There won’t be any more European elections. I am thinking of leaving the country. I don’t feel welcome here. There are bigots everywhere, but I expected the institutions to work, I expected Manchester city council to be able to do their job impartially, but it seems they are hostile, or at least they don’t care. I did think they would be flexible enough to admit there were problems and then collect our votes. But it seems that is not going to happen.

Marianna Limnaiou is a special needs teacher who lives in Sheffield. Originally from Greece, she has been in the UK for more than eight years and is pregnant with her first child. She also says she was not told about the UC1 form, or sent one to complete. She wanted to vote because of worries about both Brexit and the climate crisis.

I registered in May to vote. I didn’t know about the form. If I’d been told about it I would have requested one, and if I had been sent one [by the council] I would have filled it in. Unfortunately I went to the polling station today and they told me I was not eligible to vote. They had my name but it was crossed out.

Maria Limnaiou, a special needs teacher in Sheffield and Greek citizen, was also turned away on Thursday.

These elections are the most important at the moment, because its the only chance that we European Union citizens have to vote against Brexit. I’m also worried about climate collapse and think we need a change politically. So being denied our vote feels really, really unfair.

• This article was amended on 27 May 2019. An earlier version misquoted Petros Diveris as saying he felt like the UK had “shat” on him. This has been corrected to “spat”.