Contingency plans in place for £6.5m Northern Ireland Assembly election on December 15 as deadline ticks nearer

Chief Electoral Officer Virginia McVea said that around 5,500 members of staff were needed at polling stations and count centres for an election that would cost around £6.5million.

She said: “The next big event was meant to be the scheduled local council elections for 2023, but we have been mindful of the legislation that if an Executive wasn’t formed by the deadline of October 28 an election would be called.”

Ms McVeigh said that behind the scenes her office began contingency planning, and following talks with the NIO the Secretary of State earmarked December 15 as the preferred date for an election.

She said: “We sent some 8,000 letters out in September [to the reserve list of election staff] asking that if an election was to be called in December could you be available to work for us.

“Once you get to that time of the year you know that everybody will be making plans. My concern was coming up to Christmas we’d need 600 and 700 polling stations and 5,500 staff. We needed to give them a heads up.”

Ms McVea said that with contingency plans in place, nothing more would be done until an election is called: “Until it is actually called it shouldn’t be as if it is a fait accompli. We’ll move into another stage if it is called.”

She reminded voters to be prepared: "In the last election in May, the biggest reason that people who had asked for an absent vote didn’t get it was because they didn’t have a thing called a digital registration number.

“The clearest advice I can give to people is if they think there’s any chance they might not be able to attend their polling station to make sure to contact us now to get your digital registration number so as you have it ready if an election is called and you need to apply for an absent vote.”

In terms of venues, she said: “The plan is if it’s the 15th we’ll use the Eikon Centre, Titanic Centre and Foyle Arena. Focusing on bigger count centres works for us in terms of quality and facilities and everything else. We usually don’t get Eikon because the elections are usually in May and they have the Balmoral Show.”

Although people who work for the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland during elections do get paid, it is not a great deal and as such they are often viewed as volunteers.

Ms McVea said: "I fundamentally look at this as public service. For those thousands of people who come forward it’s so important for us always to have the best communication and good relationships with them. They are part of our team, it’s not their day job. We are very, very grateful to them.”

Asked if she thought this election would see a greater or smaller turn out than May, she said: "I couldn’t guess at that, we’ll do everything we can to make it as accessible as possible to allow anyone who wants to cast their vote to do so.”