Guidance for (Acting) Returning Officers administering a UK Parliamentary election in Great Britain

Following the initial issue of postal ballot packs, subsequent issues of postal ballot packs will be required where electors have applied to vote by post close to the absent voting deadline which is 5pm, 11 working days before polling day.1

Any subsequent postal ballot pack issue is likely to be at an already busy time in the election timetable, so it is important that you have the necessary arrangements in place to issue and deliver subsequent postal ballot packs as quickly and efficiently as possible.

You should ensure that:

• you have sufficient staff to maintain oversight of the overall process, whether you are issuing postal votes in-house, or using an external provider
• your printer is aware of the timings of data transfers and, where applicable, dispatch of postal ballot packs
• you have processes in place to perform ongoing quality assurance monitoring of the production and delivery of your subsequent postal ballot pack issues

Special arrangements for ad hoc issues of postal ballot packs

You should put a mechanism in place to ensure that you are able to carry out additional unscheduled issues.

For example, when you become aware that one or more electors are going to be on holiday or away on business by the time of the next scheduled issue of postal votes you should, as far as is practicable, issue postal ballot packs outside of your scheduled issue to those individual electors.