PLC Public Sector reports:
Any plans made by returning officers to get a good night’s sleep on Thursday before returning refreshed to count the votes cast in the general election on Friday morning took a blow when the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 was passed in the “wash up” that followed Gordon Brown’s visit to the Queen to dissolve Parliament.
However, the Act still does provide some scope for returning officers who believe they have good reason to delay the start of vote counting to do so. This post outlines when this may be possible and, importantly for those returning officers that have decided to delay starting the count, what they have to do.
What’s changed?
Section 48 of the Act amends the parliamentary election rules by imposing a requirement on the returning officer to take:
“reasonable steps to begin counting the votes given on the ballot papers as soon as practicable within the period of four hours starting with the close of the poll.”
So the key for returning officers who feel that it is not appropriate to start the count until the following day, is what are reasonable steps? The Act also required the Electoral Commission to provide guidance on this issue and the Commission has duly obliged.
What issues can a returning officer take into account?
Unfortunately, the count being past their bedtime is not in the Commission’s guidance as an issue that can be taken into account. Any returning officer who has decided to delay the count should be ready to justify this decision by reference to issues such as:
- The availability of a suitable venue.
- The availability of an adequate number of suitable staff.
- The transport links and geography involved in getting all the ballot boxes to the venue where the votes are to be counted.
- The impact of any local government elections also taking place, particularly when the boundaries are not the same as for the Parliamentary elections. Remember verification for all elections must be completed before the count for any election can begin. However, there is then greater flexibility to leave the counting of the votes cast in the local government election until Friday morning (something to look forward to during Thursday’s sleepless night!).
- The impact on the count of the number of postal votes cast.
- The cost of making the necessary arrangements (although any concerns about this should have been raised with the Ministry of Justice).
The guidance states that returning officers should also consider whether the changes required by the Act to plans that had already been made [that the Act may require] may compromise the prime objective of the count, that is, that it should be accurate.
What do you have to do if you don’t start the count within 4 hours?
A statement will have to be prepared and submitted to the Commission. It will need to set out:
- The name of the constituency.
- The name of the returning officer.
- The date and time at which the counting of the votes given on the ballot papers began.
- A description of the (reasonable) steps taken to comply with the requirements of the Act.
- The returning officer’s explanation as to why the counting of the votes given on the ballot papers did not commence by 2am.
This statement must be submitted by 4 June 2010 and should also be published on the local authority’s website.
Returning officers proposing to follow this course of action should therefore make sure they log, in detail, all of the actions they have taken and why following these actions it was not possible to start the count within the 4 hour period. This is particularly important, and is not just a case of report filing, since a failure to take the reasonable steps could lead to a court finding them to be in breach of their official duty under Section 63 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.