Minutes:
Mags Evers, Chief Electoral and Registration Officer, provided an update following a review of the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner By-Election, which had been called at short notice due to the resignation of the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner on 16th September, 2014.
The timescales were extremely challenging, with exactly the same twenty-five day timetable being applicable to this whole area by-election as would apply to a single ward involving around 10,000 electors and 2,000 postal votes. The whole area involves 198,000 electors, approximately 50,000 postal voters and requires the use of 166 polling stations and hundreds of staff for polling duties, postal votes and for the count.
A particular issue for some voters was the voting system - Police and Crime Commissioner elections were conducted using the supplementary votesystem where voters were asked to mark a first and second choice. The first and only other time that the supplementary voting system was used in Rotherham was for the first set of Police and Crime Commissioner elections in 2012. For those elections, however, the Electoral Commission produced a booklet which it sent to every household to explain about the elections and about the voting system.
This was not available for the by-election in 2014 and the wording on poll cards and postal vote packs which were issued by the Returning Officer was prescribed in law. The prescribed wording did not allow for any detailed explanations except to say the voter should vote for their first choice candidate in the first column and for their second choice in the second column. It did not allow for an explanation that the first choice would still be counted if the voter only marked a first preference or that the vote would only be counted once if the voter marked both first and second preference for the same candidate.
Some concerns were expressed about high numbers of rejected votes at the election. There were 481 rejected votes which represented 1.35% of the total 35,696 votes cast at the by-election and was a similar rate to the other voting areas involved in the election.
It was important that any additional guidance offered to voters on the voting system should come from a source which was required in law to be impartial such as in prescribed wording on poll cards and postal vote packs issued by the Returning Officer or in guidance issued by the independent Electoral Commission.
The issue has been raised with the Electoral Commission with a suggestion that the prescribed wording on poll cards and postal vote packs should be amended before to allow for more explanation of the voting system.
Turnout was low at 18.01% although slightly higher in the Rotherham voting area than in Barnsley, Doncaster or Sheffield.
Votes for each area were counted by the Local Returning Officer and the figures from each count centre were reported to the Police Area Returning Officer in Barnsley for collation.
It was the responsibility of the Police Area Returning Officer to collate the figures and determine whether a second preference count was required or whether any candidate had been elected at the first preference stage by polling more than 50% of the first choice votes.
The statutory position was that in the event of any candidate achieving over 50% of first preference votes, the counting did not proceed to a count of second preference votes and the candidate was declared elected.
At this election, the winning candidate polled a sufficient number of the first preference votes to satisfy the statutory requirement and the Police Area Returning Officer declared Dr. Alan Billings elected as the new Police and Crime Commissioner.
The next time the seat would be up for election would be at the elections scheduled for 5th May, 2016.
Advice was sought on the availability of the information relating to the supplementary voting system for voters. Members were informed that there was no provision to allow a booklet such as that provided to every household in the UK by the Electoral Commission when the Police and Crime Commissioner elections first took place in 2012. The voting system may have been a contributory factor to the number of rejected votes.
The Chairman, when asking about the total number of rejected votes and whether these were because mistakes had been made by voters, was informed that a large number were void for “voting for more than one candidate as to first preference vote.” The rejection rate at 1.35% was higher than the 0.74% at the local election earlier in the year.
It was a statutory requirement at the count that postal and polling station voting papers were appropriately mixed before being sorted so it would not be possible to identify whether postal voters experienced more difficulty completing their vote than those in polling station who were able to ask relevant polling station staff for advice.
In light of the forthcoming combined election, the Chairman asked if any supporting guidance would be circulated to voters either from the Local Authority or the Electoral Commission and was informed by the Chief Elections and Electoral Registration Officer that the voting system (first past the post) was the same for all the polls, but that the parish council elections being all-out would mean that voters in any contested parish election would have more than one vote on that ballot paper. There may be some confusion due to the difference in franchise and it is proposed that polling stations be resourced accordingly.
It was, therefore, suggested that the Home Office and the Electoral Commission be written to requesting guidance and explanations on the supplementary voting system for all elections where this was used to help increase democracy.
Resolved:- (1) That the information be noted.
(2) That a supporting letter be submitted to the Home Office and the Electoral Commission for the inclusion of guidance and explanations on the supplementary voting system for all relevant elections to help increase democracy.
(3) That all staff involved be thanked for dealing with this by-election at such short notice.