Three changes to election law coming along for May

Three revisions to election law, affecting the count, ballot papers and postal voters, are going through Parliament and very likely to be in force for the May general and local elections.

Representation of the People (Combination of Polls) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Its primary impact will be to allow the counting of votes for the Parliamentary election to go ahead in a seat once their verification has been completed, but without having to wait for the verification for any simultaneous local elections to have also been completed.

European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Aside from a little legal tidying up ahead of the next European Parliament elections, these regulations allow Returning Officers to send another notification to postal voters whose votes were rejected at June’s elections. Such notifications are useful both as a matter of principle (if people’s votes are rejected then, as far as ballot secrecy permits, they should know rather than having their vote secretly discarded) but also because it can be due to an administrative error which, if uncorrected, will result in their future postal votes being rejected too.

Representation of the People (Ballot Paper) Regulations 2015

It introduces a revised ballot paper design:

Alas, the design car crash that is nearly all polling cards has not been improved at the same time.