Combined Authority and Combined County Authority Returning Officer guidance for Combined Authority Mayoral elections

You need to have access to the registers for all local authority areas within the combined authority area for:

• calculating the number of local government electors across all local authority areas on the last day for publication of notice of election
  • you could either carry out the calculation yourself based on the registers received or ask the EROs across your combined authority area to provide you with the figures
• checking whether the subscribers to a candidate’s nomination are valid
  • you may either collect register copies from all EROs in your area so that you can carry out the checks yourself, or you may wish to delegate the checking to local ROs
• delivering the booklet containing the candidates’ addresses to all registered electors in the combined authority area 

Candidates will require access to the electoral registers to:

• complete their nomination form
• help them campaign
• check that donations are permissible

The Commission has produced template electoral register and lists of absent voters request forms that candidates can use.

You can find detailed information on access and supply of the full electoral register and absent voters lists to candidates, registered political parties (who can request a copy at any time) and others in the access and supply section of our guidance for EROs.

You will need to ensure your plans outline the processes and safeguards you will have in place regarding the transfer and security of the data included on the electoral registers.

You should start discussions with the EROs in the combined authority area at an early stage about how this can best be achieved in practice. You will need to take into account any practical issues related to managing registers if they have been produced by different software suppliers.

If there is a need for exchanging data electronically, you should agree the timings for the exchange of data and ensure that a test of the process is carried out ahead of the first scheduled transfer. You should ensure that data protection is considered and that any transfer of data is secure.

You can find more detailed advice on storing personal data securely and maintaining your document retention policy, including what it should contain, in our guidance on Data Protection. 

You will also need to ensure there is an agreement in place between you and each ERO in the combined authority area for secure data transfer and destruction of data. Although data protection legislation does not require a written agreement when sharing data between data controllers, it is strongly recommended that you agree a data sharing protocol with any other EROs in the combined authority area 

There will be updates to the data at a number of points within the election timetable, as the ERO must publish two interim election notices of alteration as well as the final election notice of alteration. We have published a timetable containing the dates related to the publication of these notices.

Delivery of candidates’ address booklet 

You (or your chosen delivery contractor) will need access to the addresses of electors across the combined authority area for the purposes of sending the booklet containing candidates’ addresses. You should liaise with EROs to confirm the process and timescales for sharing the necessary data.