EA Bulletin: 440 England

We would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who helped to ensure the successful delivery of Thursday’s elections. Our initial assessment is that the elections were well-run and voters across the country were able to participate in the polls.

As you know, at each set of elections, the Electoral Commission collects key administrative data from Electoral Registration Officers and Returning Officers. This data provides important evidence to support our work in reporting on elections across the UK.    

We will collect the data using our usual data portal. From Friday 8 May 2026 you will be able to log on to the data portal and fill in data. You will have received an email to your electoral services email address inviting you to fill in the data for your election.

The deadline for returning the data is Friday 5 June 2026.

For local authorities that want to return voter ID data, we will collect this via the same data portal (this will be set up for the same VIDEF data as we collected in 2024 and 2025). It is entirely optional to complete this data. If you do choose to collect and return the ID data to us, the deadline is also Friday 5 June 2026.    

For full details on the data we are collecting, see the complete list.  

If you need help navigating the portal, there is a user guide here. If you have any questions about the data collection, please contact [email protected].  

Further to Bulletin 434 the Commission is running the following feedback exercises following the May polls:

Polling station staff survey

We are carrying out a survey of polling station staff to collect feedback about their polling day experiences. We would appreciate your help in highlighting the survey to your polling station staff.

There are two ways for staff to access the survey:

• The polling station handbook (hard copy and digital) features a QR code which staff can use a smart phone to scan to access the survey.
• Here is a link to the online survey which you can circulate to your polling station staff. In both cases, the link to the survey will go live on the afternoon of polling day. If you have any queries about the survey, please contact [email protected]. 

Feedback from electoral administrators

We would also like feedback from administrators and Returning Officers responsible for running the polls. This not only informs our post-election reporting but will also help us to improve how we support you in delivering well-run elections in the future.

The survey can be completed by visiting this link. The deadline to provide feedback is Friday 5 June 2026.

If you have any queries about the feedback survey, please contact [email protected].

Sample return

Last week we published a sample candidate spending return for those standing in local government elections in England. This demonstrates how returns can be completed and contains comments highlighting links between different parts of the form - for example something reported as notional spending, which is also reported as a donation. The return and further guidance can be found here. If you are aware of any candidates and agents who may benefit from this information, please forward to them.

Candidate and agent advice surgeries - Completing your spending returns

These are virtual, 20-minute sessions that provide an opportunity for candidates or agents who would like bespoke advice on a specific query or aspect of their return. If you are aware of any candidates and agents who have a questions about the candidate spending rules or need practical advice to complete their return, please ask them to get in touch with [email protected] to arrange an appointment. Surgery slots are available during the week commencing 18 May.