In some cases, you may make a processing error which results in an applicant who has properly submitted an application not having their identity verified in time for you to issue a Voter Authority Certificate or Anonymous Elector’s Document in time to vote at a poll or sign a petition. For example, a paper application form may be received but misplaced and not properly dealt with, or an online application may be incorrectly processed, resulting in the application not being sent to DWP.
You can correct the error, determine an application for a Voter Authority Certificate or an Anonymous Elector’s Document and issue the relevant document at any time before the close of poll or the signing deadline at a petition.
On discovering this type of processing error, before you determine the application, you must still:
be satisfied that the application is made by someone who appears to be the person named on the application
be satisfied that the application was submitted before the deadline (for example, it was time and date-stamped upon receipt)
send the applicant’s personal identifiers to be verified
When processing errors are identified close to the close of poll or petition, and you are concerned that the results of the DWP matching process may not be returned in time or there would not be time to carry out any local data matching or complete the exceptions process if needed, you may in these circumstances, proceed straight to local data matching and/or the documentary exceptions or attestation processes before you receive the result of the DWP matching process to mitigate the impact of the processing error.
If following this you determine the application successful, you can issue a permanent Voter Authority Certificate or Anonymous Elector’s Document as appropriate.
If this determination is after the application deadline, and you do not think the Voter Authority Certificate will arrive in time, you may also issue a temporary Voter Authority Certificate. For more information see our guidance on Issuing Temporary Voter Authority Certificates.
When the DWP check is complete, if the EROP returns a match, you must ensure that you destroy any documentary evidence provided through the exceptions or attestation process as this will no longer be required for your records. If the DWP check returns a no match result, you should continue to retain any documentary evidence you used to determine the application as successful.
You will therefore need to have processes in place to securely destroy documents where necessary. Please see our Data protection resource for EROs and ROs for more information on document retention.