Guidance for the GLRO administering the GLA elections

Mayoral nomination forms must include an indication of support for the candidate from 330 electors registered on the local government electoral register (the ‘subscribers’).1 Each nomination form needs to be subscribed by at least 10 electors from each London borough and the City of London.2  

Each subscriber is required by law to sign the nomination paper in the appropriate place and their electoral number must be included3  in the spaces provided alongside their signature, along with the polling district’s identifying letters. 

Once a nomination form has been formally submitted, even if it is later deemed invalid, the signatures of the subscribers will still count towards the one form that the subscriber may subscribe. 

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. 

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.4  

Only the first 10 subscribers from each London Borough or the City of London on any nomination form can be considered. If more subscribers are included, any subsequent names must not be considered at all. If one of the first of the 10 subscribers is invalid, irrespective of whether more subscribers have been added to the nomination form, the nomination must be held invalid.5

Signatures on nomination forms, once given, cannot be withdrawn by subscribers.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 that that this is not permitted by law and that the subscription remains valid. 

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

Checking subscribers are on the register

Subscribers must appear on the local government register for the relevant electoral area that is in force on the last day for publication of the notice of election. It is essential that the correct version of the register is used for checking that the subscribers are valid.

An elector must not subscribe more than one nomination form for the same Mayor of London election.7 You should have a robust system in place to ensure that no elector subscribes more than one nomination form. 

Any nomination forms delivered subsequently bearing that elector’s signature as a subscriber must be determined as invalid, even where the later nomination form is for the same candidate as the earlier form. However this does not prevent a person subscribing a further nomination paper where the previously nominated candidate has either died or withdrawn.

Planning guidance for the Greater London Returning Officer sets out options for how you can manage this in practice and the practical considerations you should take into account in reaching your decision. 

Whichever approach you take to managing this process, both a hard copy of the register and the electoral management system should be used in order to minimise the risk of missing a subscriber who has subscribed more than one form, with the hard copy of the register physically marked when nominations are formally submitted. 

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. If after having raised the issue you still have any concerns, you should raise these with your SPOC.

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. Where an entry has been crossed out, the first 10 subscribers from each London Borough or the City of London, excluding that entry must still be valid for the nomination to be valid.