Guidance for Returning Officers administering a Greater London Authority (GLA) election

You are responsible for the counting all the of the votes cast at the GLA elections:

• Mayor of London
• Constituency members for the Assembly of London
• London-wide Assembly members

You will declare the outcome of the Constituency Assembly Member election. You also announce the votes cast for each candidate for the Mayoral and London-wide Assembly Member election in your constituency once approved and in line with the agreed protocol. The Greater London Returning Officer (GLRO) aggregates and declares the result of the London-wide Assembly Member and Mayor of London elections at City Hall.

The GLRO is looking to produce the results for the Mayor of London first, followed by the Constituency Assembly members and then the London-wide Assembly member election.

You must open all boxes in full view of any candidates and agents that are present.1 When a box has a seal attached by an agent, particular care should be taken to show to any agents present that this seal is still intact prior to it being broken.

All count processes should be transparent. You should also provide appropriate opportunities for those who are entitled to observe and to object to doubtful ballot paper adjudication decisions. This should include ensuring that you store bundles of the counted ballot papers clearly for each contest in full sight of counting agents in a way which allows them to monitor progress throughout the count.

Mixing

Keeping the ballot papers for each contest separate from each other, the CRO must mix together all the ballot papers used in the constituency election and count the votes given on them. You must also mix the postal ballot papers with ballot papers from at least one ordinary ballot box before sorting and counting the votes.2

Sorting and counting

Ballot papers must be kept face upwards throughout the counting process in order to prevent the number and other unique identifying mark on the back of the ballot paper being seen.3 The  ballot papers should be visible at all times to any candidates, agents and observers present.

Counting assistants should sort the ballot papers into votes for each candidate. Any doubtful ballot papers should be placed aside for adjudication.

The number of votes given for each candidate should then be counted and placed into bundles of a predetermined number, e.g. bundles of 10, 20, 25, 50 or 100.

They should attach a slip bearing the candidate’s name, together with the number in the bundle, to the front. It may be helpful to colour-code the slips. The bundles should then be recounted by another counting assistant in order to ensure the accuracy of the bundle.

Supervisors should flick through the bundles in order to ensure that all of the votes in the bundle are marked in the same way before removing them from the counting staff.

It is unlikely that the number of votes in the final bundle will equal the predetermined bundle number, and so a note should be made of the number of votes in those incomplete bundles and attached to the front of the bundle.

At the end of the count, for the London Mayoral election and the London-wide Assembly Member election you must inform the GLRO of your local totals.4

The GLRO will then collate the totals for the whole of the Greater London Authority area.

London Mayoral election

The voting system to elect the Mayor of London is first past the post, which means that the candidate with the highest total number of votes across Greater London Authority area will be declared elected, and the GLRO will inform you of the result.

London-wide Assembly Member election

The voting system used to elect members for the London-wide members is the modified d’Hondt and the result is combination of numbers of political party Constituency Assembly member seats topped up with votes won by the party at the London-wide election. Individual candidates will win seats if their total is the highest at any stage in the calculation. The GLRO will inform you of the result.

Constituency member election to the London

The voting system to elect the Constituency member is first past the post, which means that the candidate with the highest total number of votes in the constituency election will be declared elected.