7.—(1) Objections or proposals may be made in writing by an interested person to the Chief Electoral Officer in respect of the draft scheme or any part of it.
(2) The Chief Electoral Officer must allow at least twelve weeks from the date of the notice mentioned in regulation 6 for objections or proposals to be made.
(3) The Chief Electoral Officer must consider any objections or proposals made in accordance with that notice and may modify the draft scheme accordingly.
(4) If, during any consultation period—
(a)notice of a local general election is published in accordance with paragraph (2) of rule 1 of the local elections rules(1);
(b)notice of an election to the Assembly is published in accordance with rule 1 of the parliamentary elections rules as applied to the Assembly by the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) Order 2001(2);
(c)notice of a parliamentary election (within the meaning of the Representation of the People Act 1983(3)) is published in accordance with rule 1 of the parliamentary elections rules(4); or
(d)notice of an election to the European Parliament is published in accordance with rule 1 of the European Parliamentary elections rules(5),
the consultation period ceases to run and resumes again the day after the day on which the declaration of the result has, or results have, been given in accordance with such of those rules as apply.
(5) The consultation period also ceases to run for the duration of any referendum period in respect of a referendum held throughout Northern Ireland (whether or not it is also held elsewhere in the United Kingdom).
(6) But objections or proposals may still be made during any period in which the consultation period has ceased to run under paragraphs (4) and (5).
(7) In this regulation “referendum” and “referendum period” have the same meaning as in part 7 (referendums) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000(6).
The local elections rules are contained in Schedule 5 to the 1962 Act (by virtue of section 57). They were substituted in their entirety by Schedule 1 to the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 (S.I. 1985/454). Amendments have been made to them on a number of occasions since then but those amendments are not relevant to these Regulations.
S.I. 2001/2599; Article 3 of, and Schedule 1 to, this Order applies the parliamentary elections rules modified as appropriate to elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. They were substituted in their entirety by Article 3 of, and Schedule 1 to, S.I. 2009/256.
1983 c. 2 (“the 1983 Act”).
The parliamentary elections rules are contained in Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act. Rule 1 has been amended by section 24 of, and paragraph 73 of Schedule 4 to, the Representation of the People Act 1985 (c. 50) and section 19 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 (c. 22).
The European Parliamentary elections rules are contained in Schedule 1 to the European Parliamentary Elections (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2004 (S.I. 2004/1267). They were substituted in their entirety by regulation 38 of, and Schedule 1 to, S.I. 2009/813.