WIREDGOV

The Electoral Commission and Manchester City Council have recently revealed that the declaration of the final referendum result on the UK's membership of the European Union will be made in Manchester.

This means that a location in Manchester will host the count collation system designed to keep track of all the votes cast across the UK and Gibraltar following the close of polls on the day of the referendum. It will be from there, that the Chief Counting Officer for the referendum will announce the result.

The same venue in Manchester will also be where the regional count collation centre for the North West is located, with Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City Council acting as Regional Counting Officer.

There will be 12  count collation centres across the UK, with the results from each of these returned to the Chief Counting Officer, who will oversee the collation of the votes and certify the overall result as accurate before making the announcement.

The Electoral Commission chose to combine its event with one of the regional count collation centres across the UK rather than host a separate event - as it did in 2011 for the referendum on the UK Parliamentary Voting System - to ensure value for money for the taxpayer

It was also recently announced that the count would take place overnight.    

Jenny Watson, Chief Counting Officer at the referendum said; "We're extremely pleased to be able to announce that we'll be working with the team at Manchester City Council to deliver the national referendum count event alongside their regional count. Agreeing this now will help us plan as quickly as possible to deliver a successful and cost effective event once we know the date of the referendum."

Sir Howard Bernstein, Counting Officer for Manchester and Regional Counting Officer for the North West, said: "Manchester is honoured to have been chosen as the venue for this important democratic event in which there will be worldwide interest. We look forward to hosting the Electoral Commission and working with them to help deliver a successful event."

Manchester is the regional count hub for North West England, where results from the 39 North West local authorities will be received and collated, but will only host the count for the Manchester City Council area.

For more information please contact:

Electoral Commission press office on 020 7271 0704
Out of office hours 07789 920414 
Email press@electoralcommission.org.uk

Or

Manchester City Council press office on 0161 2 341010

Notes to editors

1. The Electoral Commission is an independent body set up by the UK Parliament. Our aim is integrity and public confidence in the UK's democratic process. We regulate party and election finance and set standards for well-run elections.
2. The Electoral Commission has specific responsibilities and functions in relation to the delivery and regulation of referendums held under PPERA, which applies to any referendum Bill brought before the UK Parliament unless specifically stated otherwise. For more information see our briefing here.
3. The Chair of the Commission will be the Chief Counting Officer (CCO) for the referendum and responsible for certifying the outcome of the referendum.
4. The CCO is responsible for the conduct of the referendum and for ensuring the accuracy of the overall result. The Deputy Chief Counting Officer will be Andrew Scallan, the Commission's Director of Electoral Administration.
5. The CCO will also appoint Regional Counting Officers for each electoral region in Great Britain. Sir Howard Bernstein will be the Regional Counting Officer for the North West.
6. The CCO has also announced that she will issue directions to local and regional Counting Officers relating to the discharge of their functions or preparations for the referendum, having consulted on what those will be. This means that key elements of referendum, such as colour of ballot papers for example is known in advance of the date of the referendum being announced.
7. Regional Counting Officers will be responsible for coordinating the delivery of the referendum in their electoral region and will collate the local totals into a regional total.
8. Counting Officers are responsible for administering the voting process in their local area. Their duties include running polling stations, managing the postal vote process and counting the votes cast in that area.
9. Votes will be counted by the 382 local Counting Officers (COs) with local totals reported to the CCO. In Great Britain, this reporting of local totals will be managed through the eleven Regional Counting Officers (RCOs). The CCO will use a secure electronic results collation system to collate local totals. The declaration of the referendum result will be made by the CCO after all the local totals have been received, verified and collated.
10. The twelve count collation centres will correspond to the eleven electoral regions of Great Britain listed below, and Northern Ireland;

• South West and Gibraltar
• South
• London
• East
• South East
• West Midlands
• Wales
• North West
• North East
• Yorkshire and the Humber
• Scotland