Guidance for Candidates and Agents at Combined County Authority Mayoral elections

Stage 1 – Check in

The LRO's staff will deliver the ballot boxes from the polling station to the count venue.

The LRO’s staff check the ballot boxes as they arrive at the count venue.

Stage 2 – Verification

Ballot boxes are emptied onto tables and the empty boxes are shown to agents.

Staff count the ballot papers from each polling station.

Staff verify that the number of ballot papers matches the number of papers issued, as recorded on the Presiding Officers’ ballot paper accounts.

The verified ballot papers are shown to election and counting agents face up.

The LRO determines the reasons for any discrepancies and produces a final verified total.

The LRO produces a statement of the verification. Agents can view or copy this statement if they wish.

Where the election has been combined with another electoral event, all ballot boxes will be verified before any results are declared.

There may be a single ballot box for all elections or separate boxes for each. In any case, ballot papers will be sorted into the separate contests.

Any ballot paper found in the ‘wrong’ ballot box is still valid and will be moved to the correct box during verification.

If the count does not take place immediately following verification, the verified boxes will be stored securely. Candidates and agents can attach their seals to boxes if they wish.

Stage 3 – Counting of the votes

Counting of votes where there are only two candidates 

If there are only two candidates standing at the election, staff will sort the ballot papers by candidate and count the number of votes cast for each candidate. 
The LRO will send the local totals to the CCARO for the calculation of the result.

Counting of votes where there are three or more candidates

If there are three or more candidates, the Combined County Authority Mayor is elected using the Supplementary Vote (SV) system.1

Stage 1 – count of first choice votes. 

Staff will sort the first-choice votes on the ballot papers by candidate and count the number of votes cast for each candidate.

The LRO will send the local totals to the CCARO.

If a candidate obtains more than 50% of the first-choice votes across the whole of the combined authority area, they are declared elected.

Stage 2 – count of second choice votes (if required)

If no candidate obtains more than 50% of the first-choice votes, the top two candidates (or more if there is a tie) remain in the contest while the rest are eliminated. 

The CCARO will ask all LROs to count the second-choice votes from those candidates who have been eliminated.

Once the second-choice votes have been counted, the LROs will send the local totals to the CCARO. The CCARO will then add the second-choice votes from across the whole of the combined county authority area to the remaining candidates’ totals. 

The candidate with the most first and second choice votes across the combined county authority area will be declared elected.