London election count rules change on 15 May 2026

If you have ever watched a result come in and wondered what is happening behind the scenes, this rule change is about that quieter part of democracy. The Greater London Authority Elections (Amendment) Rules 2026 were made on 21 April 2026, laid before Parliament on 23 April, and come into force on 15 May. They do not change who can vote or how Londoners mark their ballot papers. Instead, they change some of the working rules for how ballots are handled and counted in Greater London Authority elections, covering the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.

According to the explanatory note published on legislation.gov.uk, the main point is simple even if the legal drafting is not. When ballot papers are being counted manually rather than by an electronic counting system, verification and counting in an Assembly constituency can now happen in more than one location and at different times. Technically, rule 2 amends Schedules 4 and 8 of the Greater London Authority Elections Rules 2007. In everyday terms, it gives election teams more flexibility to organise a manual count without having to pretend the whole process happens in one room and in one uninterrupted stretch.

Some of the wording changes are tiny on the page but important in practice. The rules now talk about separation as well as verification, and they refer to each time these stages happen rather than a single moment. That means officials can carry out the required checks whenever ballot materials are being processed across a split-site or staged count. The amendments also say ballot papers for the election being counted must be separated from ballot papers for other Greater London Authority elections before the count moves on. That matters because one election event can involve more than one contest, and the paperwork has to be sorted correctly before anyone starts adding up votes.

One safeguard stays firmly in place. After those early stages are complete, the official responsible for the constituency count, referred to in the rules as the CRO, must mix postal ballot papers with ballot papers from at least one ballot box. The rules also say ballot papers from one ballot box must be mixed with papers from at least one other ballot box before votes are counted. What this means is straightforward. Even if the work happens in more than one venue or over more than one period of time, ballots cannot simply be counted box by box or bundle by bundle in isolation. The mixing step helps protect ballot secrecy, because votes are not meant to be traceable back to a particular box, place or delivery route.

The amendments also remove wording that assumed an electronic counting system would do part of the work. In the manual-count versions of the rules, references to causing the electronic counting system to count are taken out, and some paragraphs that no longer fit are omitted. That may sound like minor housekeeping, but it matters for legal clarity. If manual-count rules still read as though computers are doing the count, the law becomes harder to follow at exactly the moment when parties, candidates, agents and observers need it to be precise.

There are a few limits worth keeping in view. These Rules extend to England and Wales only, and they do not apply to an Authority election where the notice of election was published before 15 May 2026. So if an election is already under way before the start date, the old procedure stays in place for that contest. The source text also says the Secretary of State consulted the Electoral Commission before making the Rules. The instrument was signed by Samantha Dixon, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, on 21 April 2026.

The government says no full impact assessment has been produced because no significant impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is expected. That may be true in cost terms, but procedure still matters because confidence in elections often rests on details most people never see. If you are following a future London-wide count, this is the practical takeaway: a count happening across more than one venue, or at different times, is not automatically a sign that something has gone wrong. Under these amended rules, it can simply be the lawful way a manual Greater London Authority count is organised. Democracy is not only about casting a vote; it is also about the careful, transparent handling of ballots after the polls close.