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

Nomination forms must include an indication of support for the candidate from 100 electors registered on the local government electoral register, with at least 10 electors from each constituent council within the combined authority area.1 These are known as subscribers – the first two are the proposer and seconder, while the other electors are the assenters to the nomination.2
 
Where a county council is a constituent council, but only part of the county council area is contained within the combined authority area, the subscribers must be registered in that part of the county council area that is contained within the combined authority area.3  

Each subscriber is required by law to sign the nomination form and print their name in the appropriate place.4  Their elector number must be included in the spaces provided alongside their signature, along with the polling district’s identifying letters and the name of their local authority.5

You must reject a nomination if the nomination form is not subscribed as required.6

Signatures on nomination forms, once given, cannot be withdrawn by subscribers. If a subscriber contacts you to say that they wish to withdraw their subscription, you should inform them that this is not permitted by law and that the subscription remains valid.

Checking subscribers are on the register

Subscribers must appear on the local government register for a constituent council within the combined authority area that is in force on the last day for publication of notice of election. It is essential that the correct version of the register is used for checking that the subscribers are valid.

You will need to liaise with the local ROs/EROs across the combined authority area to ensure that you base your determination of the validity of subscribers on the relevant register update. 

A person who is shown on the register as being under 18 years old at the time of nomination can only subscribe a nomination form if they will be 18 years old on or before polling day.7

If, after you have determined a nomination, an elector is later removed from the register or dies before the election (or even before the nomination is delivered) their signature remains valid and the nomination is not affected.

As you must accept the nomination form at face value, you must accept that the signature made on the nomination form is that of the person listed on the register under the relevant elector number, even if the signature suggests another name. You may draw the attention of the person delivering the paper to the issue if you are concerned, but you must take the elector number and the signature at face value.8 If after having raised the issue you still have any concerns, you should raise these with your SPOC.

Only the required number of signatures for your combined authority area on any nomination form can be considered. If more subscribers are included than the number required to stand for election in your combined authority area, any subsequent names must not be considered at all.9 If one of the first of the required number of subscribers is invalid, irrespective of whether more subscribers have been added to the nomination form, the nomination must be held invalid.10

Crossed out subscribers’ names

Occasionally a mistake is made with the subscribers on a nomination form, and one or more of the names may be crossed out on the form. If the signature and elector number for a subscriber are clearly crossed out, you should ignore it and treat it as if that row did not appear at all. If asked, you should advise that any crossings out should be clear and, ideally, initialled.

You should not cross out any entry. If the entry that has been crossed out was that of a proposer or seconder, then the new proposer or seconder must be indicated. Where an entry has been crossed out, the first signatures from the required number of subscribers for your combined authority areas excluding that entry must still be valid for the nomination to be valid.