Clacton by-election polling has forced Tendring District Council to handle a 90cm ballot paper, almost a metre long and four times as expensive to print as a regular one. Ian Davidson, the council chief executive and acting returning officer, said organising the vote had been "manic".
He said, "We've logistically been looking at the size of the ballot paper, how we fold it to get it into the envelope so we can send it out to our postal voters [and] how we manage the polling stations." Postal votes have already started going back to the town hall, and most registered voters will use polling stations on 13 August.
Ian Davidson and Tendring District Council
Davidson said the ballots are sometimes longer than the table, so teams are using double tables and sorting papers in batches before verification or counting. That turns an ordinary ballot-handling process into a space problem as well as a staffing one, with the fold, envelope and sorting steps all needing to work around the paper's length.
The ballot paper has 34 candidates, including 20 independents. Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Restore Britain have all chosen not to stand, leaving Nigel Farage back on the ballot after resigning as MP for Clacton on 7 July.
Paul Whiteley on records
Paul Whiteley, a professor of government at the University of Essex, said the earlier mark for candidates in a House of Commons contest came in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election in July 2008. He said, "David Davis resigned his seat and stood again as a protest over the issue of civil liberties," while the Newbury by-election in Berkshire had 19 candidates in 1993.
The practical issue now is not the ballot count but the handling: staff must get the long papers into envelopes, move them through polling stations and separate them for verification without losing time or space. That makes the 13 August vote a logistical test for Tendring District Council before a single ballot is counted.
