The Local Elections (Principal Areas) (Wales) Rules 2021

Appointment of presiding officers and clerks

30.—(1) The returning officer must appoint and pay—

(a) a presiding officer to attend at each polling station, and

(b) such number of clerks as may be necessary for the purposes of the poll or the count or otherwise for the purposes of the election.

(2) The returning officer must not knowingly appoint, as a presiding officer or clerk, a person who has been employed by or on behalf of a candidate in connection with the election.

(3) The returning officer may preside at a polling station.

(4) Where the returning officer presides at a polling station, these rules apply to the returning officer so presiding with the necessary modifications as to things done by the returning officer in relation to the presiding officer or by the presiding officer in relation to the returning officer.

(5) A presiding officer may authorise the clerks to do anything (including asking questions) that the presiding officer is required or authorised by these rules to do at a polling station, except ordering the exclusion or removal of any person from the polling station.

(6) Where the returning officer is not the co-ordinating returning officer, see also regulations 4 and 5 of the Combination of Polls Regulations (which provide for circumstances in which the functions of the returning officer under this rule in relation to the appointment of presiding officers and clerks are to be discharged by the co-ordinating returning officer).