Nick Robinson on the BBC at the Rochester by-election count on 20th November 2014 refers to “… people sneaking a look at postal votes…”. It is now clear that this is another reference to postal voting agents taking tallies of…
Nick Robinson on the BBC at the Rochester by-election count on 20th November 2014 refers to “… people sneaking a look at postal votes…”. It is now clear that this is another reference to postal voting agents taking tallies of…
The Electoral Commission have recently submitted a paper (published on September 10th) on legislative issues that arose in relation to the May 2015 elections to the Law Commissions’ Review of Electoral Law. The first issue listed is the tallying of…
The Electoral Commission was passed a copy on January 14th 2015 of the Labour Party’s legal advice arguing that the counting of votes at postal vote openings was legal. This is confirmed in the following internal email from Bob Posner,…
The Electoral Commission have just published the minutes of their Parliamentary Parties Panel meeting on 3rd March which triggered the sharing of the Labour Party’s legal opinion included and discussed in a previous post. At this meeting Mike Creighton, Labour…
On 29th December the Labour Party received legal advice from Gavin Millar QC of Matrix Chambers that the tallying or counting of postal votes at postal openings was not an offence under the Representation of the People Act. Why they…
In their Bulletin to electoral administration staff in Scotland and in England and Wales, published on 13th March 2015, the Electoral Commission included their view that the legislation prohibits the taking of tallies by postal vote agents at postal vote…
Following the Electoral Commission submitting their report on the Referendum to the Scottish Parliament and the Devolution Committee hearing evidence from electoral administrators and from the Electoral Commission, the Electoral Committee has today published its Report on the Electoral Management…
The Electoral Commission was created following the recommendations of the Fifth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life produced by Lord O’Neill in 1998 which argued for “a totally independent and authoritative Election Commission with widespread executive and…
In December the Electoral Commission gave the conduct of the Scottish Independence Referendum a glowing endorsement. In the foreword to their review John McCormick, Electoral Commissioner for Scotland, states ” I am pleased to report that the referendum was well run”.…