Make money 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 generate profits!

If you vote in any election, you’ll have seen the ballot clerks overseeing all the things.

Nevertheless, 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?

In that case, you’ll be able to earn round £250 for a day’s work in a polling station. It’s a fast and straightforward money-making concept and ideally suited if you’re retired or a pupil.

Who Can Grow to be 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 need to even have the right to worok within the UK. There are some issues you’ll want to declare in your software kind too, together with whether or not you’re a member of a political social gathering, you’re an lively campaigner within the elections, and when you’re a detailed relative of a present candidate. This will not go towards your software probabilities, nevertheless it have to be declared.

The one different requirement is that candidates have to be on the electoral roll – when you’re not, you actually needs to be. Not being on the electoral roll can damage your credit rating!

In the event you’re not on the electoral roll you’ll be able to register to vote on the Government’s official website. You too can discover your native Electoral Registration Workplace by clicking here. Alternatively, give your native authority a name. 

What’s Concerned?

As a ballot clerk, you’re there to set-up the polling station and ensure correct procedure 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, making sure 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 identification.

You reply to the  Presiding Officer, who’s the official in control of a polling station.

It’s a protracted day, normally from early morning (normally 6am) until not less than 11pm when the voting finishes.

You too can apply to assist depend the poll papers within the night, however remember 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 properly underneath strain and likewise focus in busy environments.

For extra info on the duties of a ballot clerk, and the necessities to grow to be one, look on the Handbook for Polling Station Staff 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 a listing of native authorities in England and Wales, click here.

It’s additionally value taking into account that when you have labored at a polling station on not less than two different events, you’ll be able to apply to grow to be a Presiding Officer, which suggests more cash! (For instance, a Presiding Officer in Herefordshire makes over £350 whereas in Merton, London, it is £430. 

There are different roles accessible which can not require you to be accessible for the total day. Bristol Council has some great videos and leaflets describing the totally different job roles and expectations.

How Do I Apply?

Often, ballot clerks have labored for his or her native council, however this expertise shouldn’t be a prerequisite. Most councils and native authorities have info on the best way to grow to be a ballot clerk on their web site. Both go to their web site and search ‘ballot clerk’, or just Google ‘grow to be a ballot clerk’ adopted by your city, metropolis, or council. For a listing of council web sites, click 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 per week earlier than an election to use as a result of the positions will in all probability already be stuffed – it’s higher to use sooner slightly 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 record for the subsequent 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’ve gotten every other good cash making concepts? Tell us within the feedback part under – we love to listen to from you!