LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ELECTIONS) ACT 1999 - SECT 47
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ELECTIONS) ACT 1999 - SECT 47
(1) The
returning officer will—
(a) in
the case of a supplementary election or a poll held in conjunction with a
supplementary election—as soon as is practicable after the close of
voting; or
(b) in
any other case—on the second day following polling day for the election
or poll (at a time determined to be reasonable by the returning officer),
with the assistance of any other electoral officers who may be present, ensure
that all voting papers returned for the purposes of the election or poll in
accordance with this Act are made available for the purposes of this section.
(2) For the purposes
of the scrutiny of voting papers, the returning officer will, with the
assistance of any other electoral officers who may be present, and in the
presence of any scrutineers who may be present—
(a)
examine the declarations used for voting (and validly returned) and determine
which votes are to be accepted for further scrutiny and which rejected from
further scrutiny, rejecting unopened—
(i)
any envelope that forms part of a set of voting papers
that have been cancelled under this Act; and
(ii)
any 2 or more envelopes where it appears to the
returning officer that the voter has acted in more than 1 capacity at the
particular election or poll; and
(iii)
any envelope where the voter's name does not appear on
the voters roll, unless the voter is the designated person for a body
corporate or group, or unless the voter's name has been omitted from the roll
in error; and
(v)
any envelope where the signature does not, to the
satisfaction of the returning officer, correspond with the signature on the
application (if any) of the voter for the relevant voting papers; and
(b) tear
off the extensions to the envelope flaps on the envelopes accepted under
paragraph (a); and
(c)
rearrange the envelopes that no longer bear their tear-off extensions so that
the anonymity of voters is maintained; and
(d)
remove the ballot papers from those envelopes; and
(e) if
an envelope contains more than one ballot paper and a scrutineer challenges
the number of ballot papers contained in the envelope—satisfy himself or
herself that the envelope does not contain more ballot papers than the number
to which the voter is entitled and, if the returning officer is not so
satisfied, return all of those ballot papers to the envelope and reject them
from the count; and
(f)
examine the remaining ballot papers and reject any informal ballot papers; and
(g)
arrange all unrejected ballot papers into appropriate parcels for counting.