Welsh Elections (Coronavirus) Act 2021

7 Power to provide for additional polling days

(1) This section applies if the day for the holding of the poll of the 2021 election is fixed under section 6.

(2) The Welsh Ministers may, by regulations made by statutory instrument, provide that polling that would otherwise be required to take place only on the date fixed under section 6 may take place on one or more additional days specified in the regulations.

(3) Regulations under subsection (2) may—

(a) specify a day only if it falls within the period of 7 days immediately preceding the day fixed for the holding of the poll;

(b) require polling on additional days to take place at particular locations or descriptions or categories of locations specified in the regulations;

(c) modify the meaning of a relevant reference so far as it relates to provision made in the regulations.

(4) In subsection (3), a “relevant reference” means a reference (however expressed) in any enactment or document to the day or date of the poll at the 2021 election.

(5) The Electoral Commission must provide advice in relation to the exercise of the power in subsection (2) if requested to do so by the Welsh Ministers.

(6) When laying draft regulations under subsection (7) before Senedd Cymru, the Welsh Ministers must at the same time lay before Senedd Cymru a statement of the reasons for the regulations.

(7) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (2) must be laid before Senedd Cymru and ceases to have effect on the expiry of 28 days beginning with the day it is made unless, before the expiry of that period, it is approved by resolution of Senedd Cymru.

(8) But if—

(a) Senedd Cymru votes on a motion for a resolution to approve a statutory instrument laid under subsection (7) before the expiry of the period of 28 days mentioned in that subsection, and

(b) the motion is not passed,

the instrument ceases to have effect at the end of the day on which the vote takes place.

(9) In calculating any period of 28 days for the purposes of subsection (7), no account is to be taken of any period during which Senedd Cymru is—

(a) dissolved, or

(b) in recess for more than 4 days.

(10) Subsections (7) and (8) do not—

(a) affect anything done in reliance on the regulations before they ceased to have effect, or

(b) prevent the making of new regulations.

(11) Regulations under subsection (2) have no effect where the poll at the 2021 election and the poll at the ordinary election of police and crime commissioners for police areas in Wales are to be taken together under article 16A of the 2007 Order.

(12) In subsection (11), “ordinary election of police and crime commissioners for police areas” has the meaning given in section 50 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (c. 13).