Guidance for Local Returning Officers administering a Police and Crime Commissioner election in England and Wales

Once your election materials have been produced, you need to ensure that all materials have been printed, collated and prepared for dispatch to electors or for use at polling stations without errors.

Quality assurance checks should be conducted as soon as possible to prevent any delays to issue and dispatch.

Checking filled postal vote packs before dispatch

Quality assurance checks of filled postal ballot packs should include that:

• ballot paper and PVS numbers align
• personalised name/address information appears as expected in windows
• each pack contains the correct items (e.g. the correct ballot papers and reply envelope are included) 

You should carry out random spot checks across all packs to ensure a representative cross-section of at least two packs from each batch of 250 packs has been checked, this is roughly the equivalent of a full Royal Mail postal tray. 

There should be specific checks of any fills that include additional items (e.g. where a by-election means an additional ballot paper is included).

You should keep a clear audit trail of the proofing and quality assurance processes  undertaken either by your staff or by your supplier which you can refer back to, should any issues subsequently arise.  

You can find more guidance to support you in this process in Quality assurance and proof checking of election materials and further guidance on quality assuring the issuing process is available in our section on absent voting. 

Checking ballot paper books before allocation

When you receive the printed ballot paper books, before any ballot papers are supplied to a polling station, you should check:

• the first and last ballot paper in every book and check that the ballot paper numbers in each book or packet run sequentially
• every detail is spelt correctly
• every emblem has been validly requested, has been included beside the correct candidate and matches the Commission’s register
• all candidate descriptions have been printed in the line for the correct candidate
• the voting instructions at the top of the ballot paper match the legislative requirements
• the ballot papers have been cut to the correct size
• the official mark has been included