Guidance for Returning Officers administering a Scottish Parliament election

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Checking the personal identifiers

You must check the identifiers on all returned postal voting statements.1

You must be satisfied that the postal voting statement is duly completed. You must compare the signature (where the elector has not been granted a waiver) and the date of birth and on the postal voting statement against the date of birth and signature contained in the personal identifiers record relating the person the postal ballot paper was addressed.

If, as CRO, you are responsible for a constituency that crosses local council boundaries you should consider what impact this will have on your processes and whether you want to delegate some of your functions to a senior officer at the other local council(s).

You will need to consider how you will obtain the data from the other local council(s) as well as considering the proportion of the constituency that is contained in the local council area(s). You should liaise closely at an early stage in the election planning process with the relevant ERO(s) and with election staff at the other local council(s) in order to identify any possible issues and how they will be addressed.

If you have delegated authority to another person to make decisions on postal voting statements at the verification of postal vote identifiers, you should provide them with a copy of the Commission and Forensic Science Service guidance on signature checking, and instruct them to follow it.

You can find the Forensic Science Service guidance on signature checking in the absent voting section of our resource page.

Your decision on determination on a postal voting statement does not have to be based only on the information on the postal voting statement and personal identifiers record. 

When making your decision, you may consider any additional information you have. For example may be an elector has contacted you to say that they have broken their arm since supplying their identifiers to the Electoral Registration Officer and is unable to replicate their normal signature. 

You may decide to accept their postal voting statement as valid if you are satisfied that this is the case, even if it has a signature that looks different to the one on the personal identifiers record.

Every decision on a postal voting statement should be taken on an individual basis.

Complete absence of a signature (where the elector has not been granted a waiver) or a date of birth must always lead to a rejection.2

In determining the validity of the postal voting statement, neither the signature nor the date of birth is more important than the other – both must be provided (unless the signature has not been provided and the elector has been granted a waiver), and both must match.3

Candidates, election agents and postal voting agents may object to the rejection of a postal voting statement. If they object to a rejection, the postal voting statement must be marked “rejection objected to” before being attached to the ballot paper envelope and placed in the receptacle for rejected votes.4

Accredited observers and representatives of the Commission have no right to object to the rejection of a postal voting statement.

Last updated: 18 November 2025