About us

We achieve our statutory role—co-ordination through support and promotion of best practice—in a number of ways. The focus is on the interests of the voter, and included delivering appropriate consistency and efficiency through a clear single point of contact with suppliers. Examples of our tasks include:

• the elections convener escalation procedure among returning officers to allow discussion of local issues, considering options to prevent similar problems elsewhere in the run-up to polling day
• the elections convener considered regular performance monitoring reports from the Electoral Commission, with action on issues
• national advocacy by practitioners to practitioners of consistent good standards of service to voters, candidates and agents
• provision of guidance further to that provided by the Electoral Commission, for example, on ballot box seals and the adjudication of doubtful ballots
• development and advocacy of guidance to returning officer on providing information to candidates and agents on count centres
• consultation on the timing of counts leading to the election convener’s direction on the timing of counts
• helping develop a consistent approach to preparing post-election data
• leading the eCounting project board to plan and oversee the delivery of the eCounting solution
• developing consistent and quality non-statutory forms
• working with the Electoral Commission and independently to deliver public awareness messages
• participation in the political parties panel, facilitated by the Electoral Commission, to create informed candidates and agents who are able to participate in all aspects of the electoral process.