Solicitor is aiming for many happy returns

A deluge of postal votes will be another headache for returning officer roger morris

Running an election and ensuring all the legal niceties are adhered to is a major task, says Roger Morris, coming up for his fifth election as acting returning officer.

Mr Morris, a solicitor and chief executive of Northampton Borough Council, has published a book called Running Elections, co-written with David Monks, chief executive of Huntingdonshire District Council.

While the mayor or high sheriff has the ceremonial role of announcing the final results, it is the acting returning officer - generally the chief executive or other senior officer of the relevant local authority - who is in day-to-day command.

Mr Morris, who is chairman of the Law Society's diploma board for local government law and practice, says: 'In my case, there are two constituencies in Northampton.

There are 172 polling stations in about 140 different locations.

Each station has two or three staff, so, when you add the people for the count and ancillary staff, there are about 600 people involved on the day.

'We also have to deal with nominations and candidates, checking papers for legal technicalities, while a major new clerical task is organising postal votes.

For the first time, they are available on demand, and are likely to run into several thousand, probably double the amount in 1997.' At the same time, there will be voting in the county council elections.

The voting papers go in the same ballot boxes but are counted the following night.

Mr Morris explains: 'There are rules about candidates and expenses, and people try to bring you in to referee, but you have to stand back.

My role is to manage the procedure.

All acting returning officers are conscious at this stage how easy it is for things to go wrong.'l Running Elections is available from the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives.

For more information,tel: 0845 6010649.Grania Langdon-Down