Registering as a candidate.

In the UK there are rules about who can stand as a candidate but assuming your candidate or yourself if you are the candidate meet the normal criteria, live or work in the area, don’t have any outstanding criminal convictions and aren’t a bankrupt you still need to register as a candidate with the returning officer.

The returning officer is usually a senior official of the local authority who has overall authority for the electoral process in their area. If you contact them and say you wish to be a candidate you can request a nomination form which they will send you.

To be correctly nominated you will need to have a proposer, a seconder and ten supporters who will all need to sign your registration form. All of these people have to be registered electors in the area for which the election is being held. There is a place on the form for them to supply their polling number to prove that they are registered electors although at this time they will not have received their polling cards so this is where your copy of the Electoral Role proves its worth again. If someone is adamant that they want to sign your form but they are not registered to vote do not let them as this will invalidate your form and your candidature. For council elections they have to be electors in the ward in which you intend to stand and for general elections they have to be registered in the constituency for which you intend to stand. If you do not have an organised party with a membership on which to draw you can ask family members or neighbours as long as they are registered electors. These are allowed and strangely being a signatory to a candidate’s nomination is not an indication of support for that candidate’s campaign, only for their right to stand as a candidate.

You will have to deliver your nomination papers to the returning officer by a pre-determined date usually 4 –5 weeks prior to the election day.

Registering the Candidate is usually carried out by the Agent; it is one of their main roles. In law a candidate needs to have an agent although you can been your own agent. The agent is legally liable for the conduct of the campaign so it helps if they have been involved before and know what to look out for. The agent should be organising all the activites discussed in this guide.

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