The local returning officer must appoint and pay a presiding officer to attend at each polling station and such clerks as may be necessary for the purposes of the election, but he must not appoint any person who has been employed by or on behalf of a registered party or individual candidate in or about the election.

The local returning officer may, if he thinks fit, preside at a polling station and the provisions of these rules relating to a presiding officer apply to a local returning officer so presiding with the necessary modifications as to things to be done by the local returning officer to the presiding officer or by the presiding officer to the local returning officer.

A presiding officer may do, by the clerks appointed to assist him, any act (including the asking of questions) which he is required or authorised by these rules to do at a polling station except order the arrest, exclusion or removal of any person from the polling station.