The Regional Assembly and Local Government Referendums Order 2004

Attendance at counting of votes

55.—(1) The counting officer shall make arrangements for counting the votes in the presence of the counting agents appointed for the referendum as soon as practicable after the close of the poll, and shall give to those counting agents notice in writing of the time and place at which he will begin to count the votes.

(2) No person may be present at the counting of the votes other than—

(a) the Chief Counting Officer, the counting officer and his clerks,

(b) the referendum agents,

(c) the counting agents,

(d) in the case of combined polls, any person entitled to be present at the counting of the votes at the other poll,

(e) any person authorised by the Electoral Commission to attend at the counting of the votes as a representative of the Commission,

unless permitted by the counting officer to attend.

(3) A person not entitled to attend at the counting of the votes shall not be permitted to do so by the counting officer unless he—

(a) is satisfied that the efficient counting of the votes will not be impeded; and

(b) has either consulted the referendum agents or thought it impracticable to do so.

(4) The counting officer shall give the counting agents for the referendum such reasonable facilities for overseeing the proceedings, and all such information with respect to them, as he can give them consistently with the orderly conduct of the proceedings and the discharge of his duties in connection with them.

(5) In particular, where the votes are counted by sorting the ballot papers according to the answer for which the vote is given and then counting the number of ballot papers for each answer, the counting agents shall be entitled to satisfy themselves that the ballot papers are correctly sorted.