Guidance for Returning Officers administering a Scottish Parliament election

The ERO is required to supply CROs with such copies of the electoral register as are required for the different aspects of the election. You should liaise with the relevant ERO(s) to agree how this will be managed in practice. If you are also the RRO, you will need to liaise with EROs from across your region.

Constituency candidates and individual regional candidates are entitled to a free copy of the full register on written request. In the case of a registered party which submits a list of candidates as regional members, the election agent for the party list is entitled to a copy of the full register.

While the legal responsibility for supplying registers rests with the ERO for each council area, if you are a CRO for a constituency which crosses council boundaries, you should have in place plans for managing or coordinating requests and supplying copies of the registers to candidates to ensure that all candidates can be supplied with registers in such a way that they have timely and easy access to them.

If you are also the RRO, you should have in place plans for managing or coordinating requests and supplying copies of the registers for the whole of the region to ensure that all those entitled to them are supplied with the registers in such a way that they have timely and easy access to them.

For example, you may consider supplying the registers centrally on behalf of all the EROs in the constituency or, in the case of an RRO, the region, and include a request form in the nomination pack that covers all council areas in the relevant electoral area. The benefit of this approach is that it could operate so that candidates or election agents only need to complete one request form covering all council areas and receive their registers from a single place, instead of having to approach each ERO separately with individual requests.

You would also need to consider the practicalities of collating the registers and in particular the updates to the register, and to discuss and agree with the EROs how the various registers and updates to them could be brought together for subsequent timely supply, including how this would work for both printed and data copies. The registers must be supplied in data form unless a printed copy has been specifically requested.

We have produced a template electoral register and absent voter list request forms that candidates and election agents can use.

You can find the register request form and absent voter list request form in the planning section of our resources page.
 
For more information on the 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 see our guidance for EROs on access and supply of the electoral register.