The Greater London Authority Elections (Amendment) Rules 2026 were made on 21 April 2026, laid before Parliament on 23 April 2026 and will come into force on 15 May 2026. The instrument updates the legal framework for Greater London Authority elections where ballot papers are counted manually rather than through an electronic counting system. In practical terms, the change gives election administrators more flexibility. According to the explanatory note published with the instrument, verification and counting in an Assembly constituency will now be able to take place in more than one location and at different times.
The amendments sit within the Greater London Authority Elections Rules 2007, which govern the conduct of elections for constituency Assembly members, London-wide Assembly members and the Mayor of London. The 2026 instrument does not rewrite that framework in full. Instead, it makes targeted changes to Schedules 4 and 8, which contain adaptations to the standard conduct rules for cases where counting is carried out manually. This is an administrative rules change rather than a change to how Londoners vote. It does not alter franchise, voting method, ballot design or the way seats are allocated. Its focus is on count management, particularly where returning officers need to organise the process across more than one venue or session.
One of the clearest drafting changes concerns the stages of attendance and oversight. In several places, wording that referred to attendance at verification is amended so that it now refers to separation and verification, and so that references to 'the time' become references to 'each time'. That matters because the older wording assumed a more singular process. The revised drafting recognises that where work is split across multiple venues or timings, candidates, agents and others entitled to attend need a clear legal basis for being present at each relevant stage, not only at one central verification event.
The instrument also adjusts how ballot papers are handled before the count. In the modified manual count provisions, the constituency returning officer must separate ballot papers for the relevant election from those relating to other Authority elections. That is particularly relevant where different GLA contests are being administered alongside each other. After the relevant verification or separation stage is complete, the rules require postal ballot papers to be mixed with ballot papers from at least one ballot box, and ballot papers from one ballot box to be mixed with ballot papers from at least one other ballot box, before votes are counted. In policy terms, that preserves the existing protection for ballot secrecy while allowing the administration of the count to be more distributed.
A further set of amendments removes procedural wording that assumed the use of an electronic counting system. In the revised Schedule 8 provisions, references requiring the officer to cause an electronic counting system to carry out functions are omitted, and other paragraphs linked to that system are removed from the manual-count adaptations. The result is a cleaner legal fit between the rules and the process actually being used. Where manual counting is chosen, the legislation now sets out a manual pathway more directly, rather than relying on older text that had to sit alongside provisions drafted with electronic counting in mind.
For borough teams, constituency returning officers and count venue managers, the immediate effect is greater operational discretion. A constituency count will be able to be organised across more than one site within the constituency and at different times, which may help with venue capacity, staffing, security, transport of materials and contingency planning. At the same time, the instrument keeps some firm procedural boundaries. The mixing requirements remain in place, and the amendment applies only to elections for which the notice of election is published on or after 15 May 2026. Elections already under way before that date are not brought into the new system.
The instrument states that the Secretary of State acted under powers in the Representation of the People Act 1983 and consulted the Electoral Commission under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. It was signed by Samantha Dixon, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The accompanying note says no full impact assessment was produced because no significant effect on the private, voluntary or public sectors is expected. Even so, the amendment is operationally important. For future GLA elections using manual counting, it gives administrators a clearer legal basis for splitting verification and count activity across multiple locations and timings while keeping the safeguards around ballot handling intact.