The media plays an important role in providing information to voters on the election. It is important that media communication is managed in a coordinated and consistent way across the combined authority area in order to maintain public confidence that the election is being well-run. To achieve this effectively there should be a clear process in place for the combined authority area to be followed by you, local ROs and your respective communications teams to respond to any issues that arise.
You should ensure that stakeholder coordination and communication is embedded throughout your planning. Your arrangements for working with the media should include:
plans for coordinating media liaison within the combined authority area, and strategies for dealing with both proactive communication and media liaison in relation to specific events such as the verification and counting of votes and the result declaration
processes for dealing with general media enquiries
plans for reactive handling of any issues that arise in relation to the election, for example allegations of electoral fraud