Clacton by-election ballot list costing four times more

Davidson said his teams are having to make changes to the way they usually carry out elections.

The ballots are “going to be sometimes longer than the table so we’re having to do double tables and we’re going to have to sort them in batches before we can verify them or even count them.”

Paul Whiteley, professor of government at the University of Essex, said the previous record for the number of candidates standing for a seat in the House of Commons was the Haltemprice and Howden by-election in East Yorkshire in July 2008.

“David Davis resigned his seat and stood again as a protest over the issue of civil liberties,” explained Whiteley.

“There were 26 candidates.”

Prior to that, the previous record was the Newbury by-election in Berkshire in 1993, which featured 19 candidates.

Farage resigned as MP for Clacton on 7 July, following increased scrutiny over his finances and a parliamentary investigation, but the Reform leader is standing again.

Among the candidates on the ballot are 20 independents – also a record for a single election.

A full list of the 34 candidates is available on the BBC News website. The main parties have chosen not to stand.