Generate income from the election

Studying Time: 4 minutes

Up to date fifteenth April 2024

The native elections shall be held on Thursday 2nd Might 2024. Many individuals don’t realise that native elections are greater than an opportunity to forged your vote — they’re a possibility to earn money!

While you vote in any election, you’ll have observed the ballot clerks overseeing every part.

Nonetheless, have you ever ever thought of making a bit of additional money as a ballot clerk your self? Are you able to make your self free for the entire day?

If that’s the case, you’ll be able to earn round £250 for a day’s work in a polling station. It’s a fast and simple money-making concept and splendid in case you are retired or a pupil.

Who Can Turn into a Ballot Clerk?

Anybody is eligible to behave as a ballot clerk, offering they’re over 18, literate and numerate and never have labored for a candidate standing within the present election. You should even have the proper to worokay within the UK. There are some issues you have to declare in your software kind too, together with whether or not you’re a member of a political occasion, you’re an energetic campaigner within the elections, and when you’re a detailed relative of a present candidate. This may occasionally not go towards your software possibilities, but it surely should be declared.

The one different requirement is that candidates should be on the electoral roll – when you’re not, you actually must be. Not being on the electoral roll can harm your credit standing!

Should you’re not on the electoral roll you’ll be able to register to vote on the Authorities’s official web site. You may as well discover your native Electoral Registration Workplace by clicking right here. Alternatively, give your native authority a name. 

What’s Concerned?

As a ballot clerk, you might be there to set-up the polling station and ensure right process is adopted all through the day, together with after voting closes.

Your duties embody checking persons are eligible to vote, checking and marking electoral numbers, stamping and issuing poll papers, and, crucially, ensuring that votes are forged in secret and put into the poll field. For the primary time ever, all in-person voting requires photographic ID in any respect polling stations within the UK for Parliamentary elections – so that you’ll must have a very good eye for faces, since you’ll be checking voters’ IDs to verify their id.

You reply to the  Presiding Officer, who’s the official accountable for a polling station.

It’s an extended day, normally from early morning (normally 6am) until no less than 11pm when the voting finishes.

You may as well apply to assist rely the poll papers within the night, however bear in mind that that is, as you’ll be able to in all probability think about, fairly frantic work. You’ll want to have the ability to work nicely beneath strain and in addition focus in busy environments.

For extra info on the duties of a ballot clerk, and the necessities to turn into one, look on the Handbook for Polling Station Workers right here.

How A lot Can I Make?

To learn the way a lot your native council pays, merely go to their web site and search ‘ballot clerk’. For an inventory of native authorities in England and Wales, click on right here.

It’s additionally value taking into consideration that you probably have labored at a polling station on no less than two different events, you’ll be able to apply to turn into a Presiding Officer, which implies extra money! (For instance, a Presiding Officer in Herefordshire makes over £350 whereas in Merton, London, it’s £430. 

There are different roles out there which can not require you to be out there for the complete day. Bristol Council has some nice movies and leaflets describing the completely different job roles and expectations.

How Do I Apply?

Often, ballot clerks have labored for his or her native council, however this expertise just isn’t a prerequisite. Most councils and native authorities have info on methods to turn into a ballot clerk on their web site. Both go to their web site and search ‘ballot clerk’, or just Google ‘turn into a ballot clerk’ adopted by your city, metropolis, or council. For an inventory of council web sites, click on right here. 

Alternatively, you’ll be able to name your native authority and ask for the Elections and Registration Workplace, or ship them an electronic mail telling them that you just’re . They’ll ship you a kind in the event that they want clerks. Don’t go away it till every week earlier than an election to use as a result of the positions will in all probability already be crammed – it’s higher to use sooner relatively than later.

Some native authorities recruit all yr spherical so you’ll be able to maintain making use of and be placed on a ready listing for the following election.

In case you are chosen as a ballot clerk you’ll attend a coaching/briefing session after which be sworn within the day earlier than the election.

On Election Day, a Presiding Officer oversees the entire station and can supervise and instruct you.

Have you ever ever made cash as a polling clerk? Do you may have some other good cash making concepts? Tell us within the feedback part beneath – we love to listen to from you!