Guidance for Returning Officers administering a Scottish Parliament election

You must determine the validity of a nomination form as soon as is practicable after formal delivery.1 This enables candidates or parties whose nominations have been deemed invalid to submit new papers before the close of nomination.

We have produced a checklist to assist you with processing nomination forms.

You can find the checklist in the nominations section of our resource page.  

Accepting nominations at face value

You must not:

• undertake any investigation or research, your duty does not go beyond seeing that a nomination form is correct on face value2

You should not:

• investigate whether a name given on a nomination form is genuine

You should:

• disregard any personal knowledge you may already have
• determine nominations on the basis of the form itself