The Police and Crime Commissioner Elections Order 2012

Equipment of polling stations

29.—(1) The local returning officer must provide each presiding officer with however many ballot boxes and ballot papers the local returning officer thinks are necessary.

(2) Every ballot box must be so constructed that the ballot papers can be put in it, but cannot be withdrawn from it, without the box being unlocked or, where the box has no lock, the seal being broken.

(3) The local returning officer must provide each polling station with—

(a) materials to enable voters to mark the ballot papers;

(b) copies of the register of electors used for the PCC election which contains the entries relating to the electors allotted to the station (or, in the case of a register only part of which contains those entries, that part);

(c) the parts of any special lists prepared for the PCC election corresponding to each register or part of a register provided under sub-paragraph (b);

(d) a list prepared under rule 20 which contains the numbers (but not the other unique identifying marks) corresponding to those on the ballot papers provided to the presiding officer of the polling station.

(4) The reference in paragraph (3)(b) to the copies of the register of electors includes a reference to copies of any notices issued under section 13B(3B) or (3D) of the 1983 Act(1) in respect of alterations to the register.

(5) The local returning officer must also provide each polling station with—

(a) at least one large version of the ballot paper for the assistance of voters who are partially sighted which complies with article 85(6) and which must be displayed inside the polling station;

(b) an enlarged hand-held sample copy of the ballot paper for the assistance of voters who are partially sighted which must be clearly marked as a specimen provided only for the guidance of voters;

(c) a device for enabling voters who are blind or partially sighted to vote without any need for assistance from the presiding officer or any companion (within the meaning of rule 41).

(6) The device mentioned in paragraph (5)(c) must—

(a) allow a ballot paper to be inserted into and removed from, or attached to and detached from the device, easily and without damage to the paper,

(b) hold the ballot paper firmly in place during use, and

(c) provide suitable means for the voter—

(i) to identify the spaces on the ballot paper on which the voter may mark his or her vote,

(ii) to identify the candidate to which each such space refers, and

(iii) to mark his or her vote on the space the voter has chosen.

(7) The local returning officer must also provide each polling station with the notices for the guidance of voters that are provided to the local returning officer under rule 30(1) and—

(a) the notices referred to in rule 30(1)(a) must be exhibited in every voting compartment, and

(b) the notices referred to in rule 30(1)(b) must be exhibited outside the polling station and in the communal areas inside it.

(8) Where information about the supplementary vote system is provided to the local returning officer under rule 30(3), the local returning officer must also provide each polling station with that information.

(9) Any information provided to a polling station under paragraph (8) must be exhibited there.

(10) Where proof has been given to the police area returning officer’s satisfaction of the death of a candidate, the police area returning officer must request each local returning officer for a voting area wholly or partly comprised in the police area to provide each presiding officer with a sufficient number of notices to this effect for display in every compartment of every polling station.

(1)

Section 13B of the Representation of the People Act 1983 was inserted by paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the Representation of the People Act 2000 (c.2) and amended by section 11(3) of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 (c.22) and section 74 of, and paragraph 3 of Schedule 10 to, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (c.13). Subsections (3B) and (3D) were inserted by section 11(4) of the Electoral Administration Act 2006.