You may receive paper applications for a Voter Authority Certificate or an Anonymous Elector’s Document which do not contain all the required information.
If the applicant has not been able to provide their date of birth, NINo or a photo that meets the requirements they must provide a statement of the reasons why as part of the application.
Where an applicant is unable to provide their date of birth or NINo, and they provide a statement of the reasons why, the application is not rejected as incomplete and you must verify the identity of the applicant using local data matching1
where possible, or instead move the application on to the exceptions process or attestation process.2
Where an applicant is unable to provide a photo that meets the requirements, you should consider the reasons provided for any non-compliance and decide whether to accept the photo provided.
If no statement is included on the paper application, you should not assume that the applicant cannot provide the missing information or a photo that meets the requirements. You should contact the applicant and ask for it to be supplied. If the application is made in the run up to an election or petition, you should also explain that if the missing information is not provided by 5pm, 6 working days before the poll or the last day of the signing period for a petition, it will not be possible to process it in time.
You should contact the applicant in writing or by telephone or email where you hold a telephone number or email address for them.
You are not able to determine an application if any of the required information is missing or incomplete. The missing information does not need to be provided in writing, providing you are satisfied that you are speaking to the applicant, it could be provided by phone, e-mail, or in-person.
You should ensure that any missing information that is provided to you is transferred to the written application.
An application is considered on hold until all required information has been supplied. You should wait for a reasonable period of time after contacting an applicant for them to supply the missing information or provide a reason as to why it cannot be provided. After that period of time has elapsed, you should reject the application and notify the applicant.
While a reasonable period of time is not defined in legislation, in our view this should be no longer than 28 days. Where there is an election or petition due to take place you should ensure you notify the applicant of the deadline to supply the information for the application to be able to be processed for that relevant election or petition.