Election notices: three problems and their solutions

Bring back the fancy fonts.

Here at Democracy Club we spend much (most) of our time collecting data from election notices. Notices are official documents published by councils before and after an election, giving information such as the time, place, number of candidates and result. In the physical world you can usually find them pinned up outside the local council offices. Online they usually take the form of a PDF, but are increasingly diversifying into other formats as councils move to make their websites more user-friendly.

There are quite a few different notices, but for our purposes there are two key ones: the Statement of Persons Nominated (SoPN) and the Declaration of Result. We collect the vast majority of our data from these two notices, and do not consider either fit for purpose. Both omit important information relating to the electoral process, while the SoPN confusingly includes the details of people who will not appear on the ballot paper.

This blog identifies three problems and offers suggestions for their solution. These are small reforms to the existing process which should not require councils to collect any new data, and will hopefully improve the process for everyone concerned.

Recommendations

1. The Statement of Persons Nominated should specify which emblem each candidate will use.

2. Individuals who will not appear on the ballot paper should not be included in the Statement of Persons Nominated.

3. The Declaration of Result should include the total electorate on the day of the poll.

The Statement of Persons Nominated

The official list of candidates in an election is called the Statement of Persons Nominated (SoPN). Although each council has its own method of publishing this document, it typically takes the form of a table listing each candidate in alphabetical order, their address and ‘description’ (that is, a party label or ‘independent’). Currently this document does not exactly reflect the ballot paper the voter will receive in two important respects.

🔰 Emblems 🔰

Problem: Political parties can register up to three different ‘emblems’ (logos) for use on ballot papers. However, if a candidate has chosen to use an emblem, this is not mentioned on the SoPN, and we have never seen a council publish this information. Consequently we do not know with confidence which emblem, if any, will appear next to each candidate. Knowing this information in advance would help many voters, especially those with visual impairments, prepare for the polling booth.

Suggested solution: The Electoral Commission already provides each emblem with an ID number. The SoPN should be modified to include this ID, perhaps alongside an image of the emblem itself.

👻 Phantom candidates 👻

Problem: The current SoPN rules require councils to include in the list of candidates any person who was successfully nominated but subsequently withdrew or was disqualified. While some councils publish these withdrawn candidates separately, they are commonly included in the main list and identified only by a very-easy-to-miss note in a rightmost column (example). Not only is this confusing for readers, it also causes frustrating issues for anyone attempting to collect candidate data at scale by unnecessarily increasing the opportunities for phantom candidates to slip into the data.

Solution: These ‘phantom’ candidates should be removed from the SoPN (as is already the case in Scottish council elections), or perhaps moved to an explicitly separate table in the document. The Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) has suggested that councils should be required to publish a ‘statement of rejected nominations’, to enhance the transparency of the nomination process.¹ This projected additional notice could easily incorporate withdrawn or disqualified candidates.

The Declaration of Result

👥 Electorate 👥

Problem: After an election is concluded, councils are required to publish a Declaration of Result, which is defined as “[the] name and of the total number of votes given for each candidate together with the number of rejected ballot papers”. This declaration does not require councils to include the total electorate on the day of the poll. Some councils include it, others give turnout as a percentage only, and a significant number don’t include either. Consequently it can prove impossible to know the turnout for an election without reaching out to the council, creating more work for everyone involved.

Solution: The Declaration of Result should be modified to include the electorate on the day of the poll.

The bigger picture

There are more notices that the two dealt with here. Both the Law Commission and the AEA have suggested simplifying and merging some of them.² If and when this projected reform goes ahead, we hope that consideration will be given to the changes we have suggested above.

📋

Header image: The London Archives.