Ballot form for election of employee reps

Our ballot form is to accompany the letter inviting employees to elect employee reps. It’s the form the employee should use to cast their vote for who they want to be their employee representatives for collective redundancy or dismissal and re-employment consultation, or consultation on a TUPE transfer. You’ll need to ensure you comply with the statutory election rules, including that the ballot is secret.

Election rules

The statutory election rules provide that:

• you must make such arrangements as are “reasonably practical” to ensure the election of employee reps is fair
• you shall determine the number of reps to be elected so that there are sufficient numbers to represent the interests of all the affected employees, having regard to the number and classes of those employees
• you shall determine whether the affected employees should be represented either by reps of all affected employees or by reps of particular classes of those employees
• before the election, you shall determine the employee reps’ term of office so that it’s of sufficient length to enable relevant information to be given and consultations to be completed
• the candidates for election as employee representatives are affected employees on the date of the election
• no affected employee will be unreasonably excluded from standing for election
• all affected employees on the date of the election are entitled to vote for employee reps
• the employees entitled to vote may vote for as many candidates as there are reps to be elected to represent them
• the election will be conducted so as to secure that, as far as is reasonably practicable, those voting do so in secret and the votes are accurately counted.

Our Ballot Form for Election of Employee Reps is aimed at complying with these rules. It contains detailed instructions on completing the form, including how many employee reps are to be elected, how exactly the voting process works and what the employee needs to do, how the form should be returned, who will count the votes and when the outcome of the ballot will be announced. As well as having a ballot box at work, which is the simplest way for ballot forms to be returned, consider alternatively or additionally allowing them to be posted, particularly if you have remote workers (or there are ones on long-term leave). Our form also emphasises that the ballot is secret and hence the employee does not have to include their name. The actual ballot form itself is then pretty simple - it’s a series of boxes containing candidate names and the employee marks a cross (X) in the box next to the name(s) of the candidate(s) they want to vote for.  Then, who gets elected is simply who secures the highest number of votes.