Guidance for the GLRO administering the GLA elections

You should ensure that there is consistent and transparent communication about the results collation process both at City Hall and at the count venues, to parties, candidates and agents, the media and other relevant stakeholders.

As GLRO you must: 

• collate the local verification and the local count totals from each constituency  
• calculate and declare the overall result1

for the election of the Mayor of London and the London-wide Assembly Member election.

It is for you as GLRO to determine how best to manage these processes. Your project plan should include plans to deliver the calculation of results.

You should liaise with CROs in planning and developing the process for collating, checking local totals and authorisation for them to be shared publicly. You should also provide them with guidance on how this will work in practice. You will need to ensure you have processes appropriate to the risk in place to ensure an appropriate level of security of personal data at the verification and count.

You should produce and share in advance with CROs templates of all documents which you will require them to complete, during the collation of local totals (whether electronically or in hard copy) to ensure that all information is recorded and transmitted in a consistent way, and to provide a clear audit trail. Any system used should have a contingency in case of any problems or system failures.

You should consider how best to organise and manage the two-way transfer of information between you and CROs. This includes the checking, recording and collation of information from CROs, and the calculation of the results. You should determine whether you need to put in place IT systems or programs to facilitate this.  

Whatever processes and systems you use for collating the result, you need to ensure they meet with the principles set out in our guidance for principles for effective verification, count and result collation processes.    

You should also make arrangements for testing the process and any supporting systems you intend to use, which should include at least one rehearsal of the process involving your staff and CROs and their staff in order to ensure that everyone involved understands and is familiar with how the process works and what their responsibilities are. This will also enable any issues to be identified and resolved before the event itself.