Guidance for Returning Officers administering a Senedd election

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Responsibility for sealing and retaining election documents

You must seal up the election documents listed below and, on the completion of the counting of ballot papers, you must forward these to the relevant ERO.1

If you are not also the ERO, the ERO will need to ensure that they have a mechanism in place to record the date of receipt, so they know when to destroy the documents that have been forwarded.

The following lists contain the documents you must forward to the ERO.

Documents from polling stations:2

  • the packets containing:
    • list of tendered votes
    • list of voters with disabilities assisted by companions
    • declarations made by companions of voters with disabilities
    • list of votes marked by the Presiding Officer
    • statements relating to votes marked by the Presiding Officer
    • list of persons to whom ballot papers are delivered after the correction of a clerical error or as a result of a decision on a court appeal
  • marked copies of the register of electors, the marked list of proxies and any marked copy notices issued as a result of the correction of a clerical error or a decision on a court appeal
  • the packets containing the completed polling station corresponding number lists
  • certificates of employment on duty on polling day

Documents from the postal vote issues and openings:3

  • marked copies of the postal voters’ list and proxy postal voters’ list
  • the packets containing the completed postal vote corresponding number lists
  • the packets of postal voting statements accepted as valid
  • the packets of rejected postal votes
  • the packets of rejected postal ballot paper envelopes
  • the lists of cancelled, lost and spoilt postal ballot papers
  • the packet of spoilt postal ballot papers and accompanying documents
  • the packet of lost postal ballot papers containing any part of the postal ballot pack that was not lost and which was returned to you before you issued a replacement
  • the packet of postal ballot papers, statements and envelopes that have been cancelled
  • the packets of unused postal ballot papers
  • the unopened postal ballot packs received after the close of poll or returned as undelivered (these can be forwarded at a subsequent date)

You must forward to the relevant ERO:

  • the statement as to postal ballot papers
  • the relevant parts of the list of postal votes that have failed the identifier checks4

Where the constituency includes more than one local authority, you must send such extracts of the list as are relevant to the ERO for each of those local authorities. The ERO will use this information to enable them to send postal vote identifier rejection notices to those electors.

You should also forward at the same time your record of any instances where you suspect an offence may have been committed, so that the ERO knows in which cases they should not send out a postal vote identifier rejection notice.

You can find further information on this process within our ERO guidance.

Documents from the counts:5

  • all ballot papers separately stored as:
    • counted ballot papers
    • rejected ballot papers
    • unused ballot papers (both ordinary and tendered) and spoilt ballot papers (placed together)
    • used tendered ballot papers
  • ballot paper accounts, the result of the verification of the ballot paper accounts and the statement of rejected ballot papers
Last updated: 18 November 2025