§ Mr. Laurence RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements he is making to scrutinise the counting of votes at the forthcoming European elections; how he intends to ensure that the votes across the country are verified and correlated; who will be in national charge of the election; and if he will make a statement. [75012]
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§ Mr. George HowarthMy right hon. Friend the Home Secretary hopes to be able to lay regulations to govern the conduct of European Parliamentary elections before the House very shortly.
Our intention is that votes should be verified on a Parliamentary constituency basis as soon as practicable after the polls close on Thursday 10 June.
Counting of the votes, however, may not begin until the polls have closed in the last European Union member state on the evening of Sunday 13 June.
Counting will be conducted at Parliamentary constituency level though where the same person is the acting returning officer for two or more Parliamentary constituencies he or she will be able to combine them for polling and counting purposes. Local results will be communicated to the regional returning officers who will perform the seat allocation calculations for each of the 11 electoral regions.
It is a long established tradition that local returning officers have responsibility for the conduct of the election in their areas and we do not propose to change that.