How to become a candidate in the local elections

Most people standing in the elections to become a councillor will be doing so as part of a political party, but anyone can be a candidate who is over 18 years old; is British, a 'qualifying' Commonwealth citizen^[1] or an EU citizen; qualifies as local^[2] and are not disqualified^[3].

So what do you need to do if you want to stand?

You will need to obtain a nomination form from the Returning Officer (this is a mostly ceremonial post, in practice the administration of the election is handled by the Acting Returning Officer and the council electoral services department). As well as your full name and address, the form will ask how you want to be known on the ballot paper, so if you are better known in the community by another name it can still appear. You will also need to get the signatures of 10 registered electors.

In order for your nomination as a candidate to be valid, you will have to state that you meet the qualification criteria, are not disqualified from standing and give your date of birth. This will need to be provided in writing as a formal consent to nomination.

The deadline for nominations is Noon, 8 April 2010

For full definitive guidance see the Candidates and agents page on the Electoral Commission website.

^[1]A qualifying Commonwealth citizen for candidates is defined as a citizen of a country listed in the British Nationality Act 1981 as a Commonwealth country and who does not require leave to remain in the UK or who has indefinite leave to remain.
^[2]They have lived/worded or occupied property in the area for the last 12 months or is registered as an elector
^[3]By working for the local authority, being a bankrupt or convict, or having being disqualified from standing under the laws that govern elections.

Notice of Election - Sheffield City Council

The official notice for the local elections has been published. See the full notice

Help wanted

After the "statement of persons nominated" is published (Monday 12 April 2010 for the local elections, unknown as yet for the general election) I will be endeavouring to publish a directory of candidates, including any relevant web addresses, twitter usernames, other social media profiles etc. If you know anyone who will be a candidate in either set of elections in Sheffield please get them to email in with details or of course if you are standing, email in yourself. I currently haven't decided on whether there will be any restrictions, for example on the number of links per candidate. As I have a requirement to be politically impartial I will be making an concerted effort to contact all parties and independent candidates and won't publish anything if the response is skewed, by any particular party boycotting the directory for instance.

Boundary Changes

Do you know your MP?
Have you been your representative for years?
They may not even be a candidate for your vote at the next election, even before any question about them being returned to parliament is decided. Firstly they may not be standing again, like Richard Caborn, who has decided to retire and I will be putting pages up with the candidates later on (you can find out most of the selected candidates for the main parties, but I prefer to wait for the official nomination process). The other reason is that the Boundary Commission for England has redrawn the constituencies in Sheffield. For the dry official document outlining the changes you can download it as a pdf from www.official-documents.gov.uk. You can also use www.election-maps.co.uk from the Ordnance Survey to look up the new Parliamentary boundaries; unfortunately you can’t do a postcode search on this site, you will need to search for your existing constituency, find your house on the map then using the ‘Show Layers’ tab overlay the new borders. I haven't yet found anyone who has a postcode lookup service for the new constituencies, if you know of one please add it to the comments. Below are links to the wikipedia pages for each of the seats as they will be at the election, from there you can find links to other information such as notional results for the 2005 elections as if these seats existed.

Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough - Burngreave, Firth Park, Hillsborough, Shiregreen & Brightside and Southey wards
Sheffield Central - Broomhill, Central, Manor Castle, Nether Edge and Walkley wards
Sheffield, Hallam - Crookes, Dore & Totley, Ecclesall, Fulwood and Stannington wards
Sheffield, Heeley - Arbourthorne, Beauchief & Greenhill, Gleadless Valley, Graves Park and Richmond wards
Sheffield South East - Beighton, Birley, Darnall, Mosborough and Woodhouse wards
Penistone and Stocksbridge - East Ecclesfield, Stocksbridge & Upper Don and West Ecclesfield wards (and Dodworth, Penistone East and Penistone West from Barnsley)

General Election count in Sheffield

The Electoral Commission has been surveying Returning Officers about when they are planning to run their counts for the General Election and Sheffield has reported that they are going to begin counting on the night of the poll, whenever that may be. They have already indicated that their count for the Local Elections will be on the Friday afternoon.

What am I doing?

As you can see from the sidebar description as well as watching our democratic process at work I am doing this to see how technology might be beneficial to the democratic process.
Let me be clear this is not about electronic voting or counting, we are not in a position to do this securely at the moment and possibly never will be. For more on the electronic voting pilots and counts carried out in the last few years read the Open Rights Group's reports on the matters.

No this is about spreading information to the electorate, before during and after elections at all levels to promote engagement.
Before is trying to show the mechanisms running up to polling day, so for example will promoting the candidate nomination process widen the interest in standing for election away from just members of the main parties?
During is going to first be the depressingly familiar modern task of trying to get the electorate to care enough to go vote, then it will be looking at useful ways of getting the rumours and results out from the count, what formats will be best, just tweeting? Some XML format or other? HTML with RDFa? It is this point where I am interested in your opinions an also want to encourage you to do something similar in your area.
After I will definitely want to review what was done and see what improvements can be made for next time (which could be in fairly quick order if the local and general elections are on different dates) .

Some useful links

A page on the Sheffield Council website about how to register to vote;
The Electoral Commission's About My Vote portal;
"I promise to vote in the next general election." a facebook group http://bit.ly/promise2vote.

Local Elections Calendar

The published timetable for the local elections on May 6th has been published on the Sheffield Votes calender. Sheffield council has no current timetable for the general election until it is called, but Runnymede Borough Council have an example timetable based on it being called for the same day as the local elections.      (Calendar ID: 6futn88saia01h6dgfendhptk8@group.calendar.google.com)

The Rules

It has been made very clear to me that with the accreditation as an observer I have to follow certain rules and regulations. They are set down in a code of practice for observers and returning officers. The other thing that has been highlighted is that my actions are covered by primary legislation, most importantly section 66 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 the provisions of which are designed to maintain the secrecy of the ballot. They apply to all accredited observers at polling stations, the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers and the count. Section 66 is reproduced below in full, for use by observers.

Section 66 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (as amended)

Requirement of secrecy

1. The following persons
   1. every Returning Officer and every Presiding Officer or clerk attending at a polling station,
   2. every candidate or election agent or polling agent so attending,
   3. every person so attending by virtue of any of sections 6A to 6D of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, shall maintain and aid in maintaining the secrecy of voting and shall not, except for some purpose authorised by law, communicate to any person before the poll is closed any information as to –
      1. the name of any elector or proxy for an elector who has or has not applied for a ballot paper or voted at a polling station;
      2. the number on the register of electors of any elector who, or whose proxy, has or has not applied for a ballot paper or voted at a polling station; or
      3. the official mark.
2. Every person attending at the counting of the votes shall maintain and aid in maintaining the secrecy of voting and shall not –
   1. ascertain or attempt to ascertain at the counting of the votes the number or other unique identifying mark on the back of any ballot paper;
   2. communicate any information obtained at the counting of the votes as to the candidate for whom any vote is given on any particular ballot paper. Application for accreditation as an electoral observer for individuals
3. No person shall –
   1. interfere with or attempt to interfere with a voter when recording his vote;
   2. otherwise obtain or attempt to obtain in a polling station information as to the candidate for whom a voter in that station is about to vote or has voted;
   3. communicate at any time to any person any information obtained in a polling station as to the candidate for whom a voter in that station is about to vote or has voted, or as to the number or other unique identifying mark on the back of the ballot paper given to a voter at that station;
   4. directly or indirectly induce a voter to display his ballot paper after he has marked it so as to make known to any person the name of the candidate for whom he has or has not voted.
4. Every person attending the proceedings in connection with the issue or the receipt of ballot papers for persons voting by post shall maintain and aid in maintaining the secrecy of the voting and shall not –
   1. except for some purpose authorised by law, communicate, before the poll is closed, to any person any information obtained at those proceedings as to the official mark; or
   2. except for some purpose authorised by law, communicate to any person at any time information obtained at those proceedings as to the number or other unique identifying mark on the back of the ballot paper sent to any person; or
   3. except for some purpose authorised by law, attempt to ascertain at the proceedings in connection with the receipt of ballot papers the number or other unique identifying mark on the back of any ballot paper; or
   4. attempt to ascertain at the proceedings in connection with the receipt of the ballot papers the candidate for whom any vote is given in any particular ballot paper or communicate any information with respect thereto obtained at those proceedings.
5. No person having undertaken to assist a blind voter to vote shall communicate at any time to any person any information as to the candidate for whom that voter intends to vote or has voted, or as to the number or other unique identifying mark on the back of the ballot paper given for the use of that voter.
6. If a person acts in contravention of this section he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months.
7. In their application in relation to an election of the London members of the London Assembly at an ordinary election, the preceding provisions of this section shall have effect with the insertion, after the words ‘the candidate for whom’, in each place where they occur, of ‘, or the registered political party towards the return of whose candidates,’.
8. In relation to an election of the London members of the London Assembly at an ordinary election, any reference in this section to the return of a registered political party’s candidates is a reference to the return of candidates included in the list of candidates submitted by the registered political party for the purposes of the election.