Practical notes on the management of elections; being three lectures on parliamentary election law and practice

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OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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)N SCHOO
SCIENCE

, (LOND,), B.SC. (ECON., LOND.)

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STUDIES IN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

EDITED BY THE HON. W. PEMBER REEVES

DIRECTOR OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

No. 1& in the series of Monographs by
writers connected with the London School
of Economics and Political Science

PRACTICAL NOTES

ON THE

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

The Essentials of Self-Government

(ENGLAND AND WALES).

Svo. 4s. 6d. NET.

This is a critical introduction to the scientific study of the elec-
toral mechanism as the foundation of political power, whereas
the Lectures are devoted to the practical management of an
actual contest.

The volume in which these " essentials " are elaborated is well
deserving of the attention of all serious politicians, for it con-
tains a closer and more exact study of the detailed problems
relating to electoral law, customs, and machinery, together with
the psychology of elections, than has hitherto appeared. Though
Professor Lowell and Mr. Ostrogorski have opened up some of the
issues here discussed, the wider scope of their treatment has pre-
vented them from penetrating into the recesses of the electoral
machinery. As a study of the law, politics, customs, and psycho-
l9gy of electoral institutions the book deserves high commenda-
tion.— Manchester Guardian.

A masterly treatise on every part of the existing electoral
system, descending to the minutest details, as to canvassing,
registration of voters, election expenses, treating, and even the
limits that should be placed to the exhibition of bills and posters
by the rival candidate during a contest. A book that should be
read by all interested in the abstract science of politics, and by
all who are brought into contact as political candidates or their
agents with the thorny mazes of the modern election laws. —
Glasgow Herald.

Mr. Powell's thoughful treatise in political philosophy is
best described in his own words as a critical introduction to the
detailed study of the electoral mechanism as the foundation of
political power and a potent instrument of intellectual and social
evolution. . . . Full of useful suggestions for serious minds
inquiring how the machinery of self-government may be im-
proved.— Scotsman.

This volume is at once a handbook of election law, a descrip-
tion of the current method of conducting elections, and a detailed
system of proposals for electoral reform. Theory, practice, and
ideals are all commingled, and a mass of facts collected and
skilfully arranged. It is a book that should be studied by all
before they begin to clamour for this or that change in procedure.
Daily News.

A mine of exact information on such questions as Registra-
tion, Distribution of Seats, Electioneering, Corrupt Practices,
Method of Voting, Proportional Representation, etc. Upon all
these points few electors, probably, have more than the vaguest
notions. The whole discussion is carried on in a reasonable and
impartial spirit. — Aberdeen Free Press.

A remarkable survey, ranging from such small points as
the cost of election posters to such large ones as the distribution
of Parliamentary seats. The style throughout is clear and the
book is excellent as an attempt to bring accurate scientific
methods to bear upon political organisations. — Morning Leader.

The work is a valuable contribution to political economy, and
the lights and shadows which the author throws on the present
state of our electoral machine will stimulate thought and sug-
gest further inquiry. — Globe.

Ought to prove one of the most interesting books on English
government since Ostrogorski's monumental work. ... A
welcome contribution to the new literature on government. —

Political Science Quarterly.

Mr. Powell has great experience as an election agent. Here
he gives us a book full of information which is likely to be of
value in an electoral contest, and is really full of interest. —

Contemporary Review.

In many ways the most striking contribution to the question
of national political machinery since the publication of Mill's
" Representative Government." — Labour Leader.

The book is a notable contribution to the subject, and forms
a useful and adequate text-book for the student of political
economics. — Bristol Times and Mirror.

A judicial examination of our electoral institutions, by a
legal writer, who does not obtrude his own political views. —
Sheffield Daily Telegraph.

A profound, illuminating, and eloquent study of the English
system of popular government. — Reynolds' s Newspaper.

London: LONGMANS & CO.

PRACTICAL NOTES

ON THE

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS

BEING

THEEE LECTURES ON PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION LAW

AND PRACTICE, GIVEN AT THE LONDON SCHOOL

OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

(UNIVERSITY OF LONDON)

V

BY

ELLIS T, POWELL,LLB, (Lorn), B.Sc. (EcoN. Lorn);

, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society ; Fellow of the Royal
Economic Society ; of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law ;
Author of the " Essentials of Self-Government "

LONDON :

P. S. KING & SON,

ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER.

1910.

PRACTICAL NOTES ON
THE MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS.

The modern statutes which are of special application to election
work in this country begin with the Parliamentary Election Act of
1853, which limits the time for proceeding to election in certain
constituencies. The statutes of first importance are, however, 17
and 18 Viet., c. 102, which consolidates and amends the law relating
to bribery, treating, and undue influence; the Representation of the
People Act, 1867 (which, incidentally, provides for the representa-
tion of the University of London) ; the Parliamentary Elections Act,
1868, which is the main authority for the law relating to election
petitions ; the supremely important Ballot Act (1872) ; and the
Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1883, which is prac-
tically a codification of the law on the subject. This Act is an almost
contemporary enunciation of the legal principles applicable to elec-
tions. It is an Act with which every election agent and every active
and responsible political worker, whether official or unofficial, ought
to be thoroughly acquainted. The Registration Act and the Redis-
tribution Act, both of 1885, are concerned with elements of the
electoral mechanism which do not enter into the present survey. The
only two important additions to election legislation, since 1883,
are (a) the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1895,
which deals with false statements of fact with reference to the personal
conduct or character of a candidate ; and (b) the Public Meeting
Act, 1908. Both these Acts will be briefly considered in their place.
Beyond this legislation, however, we have to take into consideration
(a) the decisions of the election petition judges with regard to the
interpretation of these statutes ; (b) the decisions and interpretations
of the old Election Committees, who tried election petitions before
1868, when the House of Commons decided to delegate its functions
in these matters to one judge, and in 1879 to two judges, of the High
Court, and (c) certain election customs, now universally recognised as
reasonable and fair. Most of these are legal, but one or two are of
extremely doubtful legality, though, by a kind of tacit agreement
between parties, they are never challenged. Sueh, for instance, is
the employment of paid party agents, sent down from the central
offices of the party organisation, to assist in by-elections. These gentle-
men are remunerated from the central party funds, but the money
which they receive is not reckoned among the election expenses,
where, strictly speaking, it certainly ought to appear.

228015

2 , \ : ; ^ ; : • ^ I^CTxCAJu ^ NOTES ON THE

As the first essential of an election is the existence of at least a
couple of candidates, we shall fitly begin our investigation by asking
what a candidate is. The question is one of extreme importance, for,
broadly speaking, as soon as a political aspirant becomes a ' ' candi-
date " his election expenses, to which there is a statutory and
peremptory limit, begin to " run " — that is to say, any money spent
after that date by his agents, in the furtherance of his candidature,
must be included in the return of election expenses. The Act of
Parliament (Sec. 63 of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51) defines the expression
"candidate " as meaning, unless the context otherwise requires, any
person who is elected or nominated, or " declared by himself or by
others to be a candidate on or after the day of the issue of the writ
for such election, or after the dissolution or vacancy in consequence
of which such writ has been issued." This is fairly vague, so that
we may profitably turn to a few judicial decisions on the subject. It
was unsuccessfully contended at Montgomery and Walsall that a
person could not become a candidate (at a general election, of course)
till the dissolution. In Stepney expenses incurred several weeks
before the dissolution (when the respondent was still the sitting
member in an existent Parliament) were held to be election expenses.
In Rochester the expenses of two conversaziones, which took" place
two months before the election, were held (assuming the functions to
be legitimate) to be election expenses. In Lichfield the principle that
the election campaign may really, for the purposes of a return of
expenses, extend back a considerable time before the election, was
applied to the expenses of a meeting held four months before the disso-
lution. In Cockermouth (1901) it was held that the candidature began
six months before the election, while in Haggerston the period was
extended to three years. In Monmouth (1901) we are told in the
last edition of Rogers that it was suggested by Kennedy, J., but not
decided, that after a candidate was selected there might be expenses
of candidature, apart from election expenses, which need not be
returned. Mr. Justice Darling held in Cockermouth (1901), where
the candidate had been selected on April 2 and the election took place
on October 14, that the expenses of a tea meeting on September 20
(but not given by the respondent) were incurred in respect of the
conduct and management of the election. These examples will show
what a wide difference of judicial opinion there is, even with regard
to the apparently simple preliminary question — am I, or am I not, a
candidate? The difficulty is a very real one. As I put it in an
article in " The Times " on the eve of the general election of 1906,
the candidate " is warned that a given sum is all that he will be
allowed to spend on ' election expenses,' and that if he exceeds it his
election will be void. But he is not told when the ' election ' legally
begins, and he is left entirely to his own judgment in deciding when
it ends. An expense incurred three months before an election may
not be an election expense, whereas the judges may take the opposite
view of one incurred three years previously. The result of this state
of things is that a candidate or his election agent must construct his.
return of election expenses more or less at haphazard."

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 3

As no definite and decisive principle is deducible from the statutes
or from the decisions on the subject I will suggest to you three good
working rules in the matter : —

(1) As a general practice, no expenditure which dates back further
than six months from the polling day need be included in the return
of expenses.

(2) But where money is spent with a direct view to the polling
booth, the six months' rule must be disregarded and the expense,
whenever incurred, should be included. Thus, registration expenses
are excluded (unless they go on in full activity, contemporaneously
with an election, which can only be the case if the election falls in the
period between July and October), as well as the expenses of bona fide
political associations supporting principles rather than a person. In
conformity with this rule, the expenses of a meeting seven months
before the election, at which a resolution of confidence in the party,
or in the Government, was carried, will not be an election expense;
nor will a resolution of confidence in the sitting member, unless the
election is within sight. But if there was a resolution pledging the
meeting to support Mr. Jones (whether he is a sitting member or only
candidate) at the forthcoming election, then you will be running a risk
if you do not put the expenses of the meeting in your return. At
the present moment (November, 1909) the prospect of an election in
January is so assured that no meeting now or recently addressed by
a person whose name ultimately appears on the ballot paper in
January can be safely disregarded as a factor in the return of election
expenses by that person's agent.

(3) In forming your final judgment, remember that it may have
to bear the scrutiny of an election court; and ask yourself whether
you can, if necessary in the witness-box, give reasons which will
commend your decision to the judicial mind in the cold, shrewd
atmosphere of that tribunal.

In some respects a sitting member has the advantage over his
prospective opponent in the matter of expenses. There is, I believe,
no ground for the suggestion that the sitting member must be con- I
sidered a candidate for the next election until he declares otherwise.
If that were so, the sitting member's election expenses for the next
election would begin to run at the close of the poll at which he was
originally elected, and in the case of a protracted Parliament his actual
fighting fund would be seriously depleted long before the actual
contest began. The fact is that the sitting member owes it as a duty
to his constituents to render them an account of his stewardship, and
to address them on political affairs from time to time. Resolutions of
confidence in him will not bring the expenses of such a meeting into
the return unless it take place when the election is actually in sight.
That is to say, a meeting held now, assuming that the election takes
place in January, would undoubtedly fall into the return of election
expenses. The expenses of the meeting are incurred with a direct
view to the ballot box and are also within the six months' limit.
Therefore they must go in.

4 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

The Act provides (46 and 47 Vict.,c. 51, s. 28 (1)) that all expenses
incurred in the conduct and management of the election should be
paid through the election agent. But, as a matter of fact, the election
agent is frequently not appointed until the parties actually go down
into the arena for the contest. When, therefore, the agent investi-
gates the position of affairs with a view to his return of election
expenses, he will doubtless, for the reasons I have already given, find
certain expenses which must come into his official return, though
they were, in fact, paid before he was appointed. Thus, in an election
next January you may find a meeting held last September the cost
of which must, in your opinion, be regarded as an election expense.
The cost of the meeting may have been paid by the local association.
In that case it will be best for you to take over the expense, giving
the local association a cheque for the hire of the hall, printing, and
other legitimate expenses. You must be careful, however, that the
expenses include 110 illegal item. If the association paid for the
services of a band to enliven the proceedings you must specifically
exclude the band from your repayment. If money was laid out in
flags and banners you must specifically exclude them from your
repayment. The best course would be to write a letter with the
cheque by which you repay the money stating that you have struck
out such and such items and can make no payment in respect of them.
The presence of these illegal items is very regrettable, and I hope
none of you will have to deal with them. But, if you have, the course
which I recommend puts the real facts of the transaction on record,
and your care in the matter would impress very favourably an elec-
tion petition court. With the illegal items excluded, and the repay-
ment shown in your return, you will have complied up to the limit of
reasonable possibility with the requirement that all payments shall
be made through the election agent.

But who and what is this election agent ? His existence is a conse-
quence of the enactment by the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Preven-
tion Act, 1883 (s. 24 (1) ), that on or before the day of nomination a
person must be named by, or on beihalf of, each candidate as his elec-
tion agent. A candidate may, however, name himself as election
agent. The object of requiring an election agent, either identical
with, or distinct from, the candidate, is to have some person who can
(be looked to for an /explanation of official malpractices : who can,
if necessary, be sued, and who shall be endowed with sufficient
authority to enable him to act up to the measure of his responsibility.
pAs Mr. Justice Field said in the Barrow petition of 1886, " the election
iagent is the person who shall be effectively responsible for all the acts
done in procuring the election. . . . He is to hire everybody; no
man is to be paid money by anybody that does not pass through his
hands. . . . He is a known and responsible man who can be
dealt with afterwards and who can be looked to afterwards for an
explanation of his conduct in the management of the election. It is
not to be left, says the Legislature, to uncertain bodies of people, to
floating committees or bodies of that sort, or even to a series of
inferior people whom we know in the former days of elections were

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 5

called managers, and people of various descriptions and denomina-
tions, whose acts no one would be responsible for or know anything
about. The object of the Act was, as it seems to me . . . that
a respectable and responsible man . . . should be there to do all
that was necessary."

It is desirable that, as far as possible, the election agent should
play the part of a solicitor who is conducting a case that is on trial
before a civil court. He is to stand at the point of official contact
between the contending forces, and to be the medium of communica-
tion where arrangement or agreement are desirable in the interests of
order and discipline. His duties in this respect necessitate the main-
tenance of courteous relations with the agent, or agents, opposed to
him, so that there shall be frankness in communication and confidence
that understandings, when once arrived at, will be loyally observed.
It is, for instance, often agreed between election agents that they will
take no technical objection to each other's nomination papers. But
the maintenance of these courteous relations is inconsistent with
violent partisanship, and for that reason it is better that the election
agent should not appear on platforms as the public exponent and
advocate of his candidate's views ; and still more desirable is it that
he should abstain from constituting himself the personal, as distin-
guished from the official, mouthpiece of his candidate. Between him
and the candidate, however, there must be an absolute confidence,
unclouded by the lightest breath of suspicion. No agent can conduct
a campaign if some of the facts and incidents are concealed from him.
He is the one person who should know all that takes place — " the
one," because there is no other who is entitled to the same fulness of
information. Even from the candidate himself the election agent
should conceal, if he can, the untoward incidents of the campaign,
the desertions, the revolts, the mutterings of " disgruntled " persons,
and the anonymous letters. These last of the hostile elements of a
campaign have very different effects on different temperaments, but,
on the whole, they are better intercepted.

There is practically no legal restriction upon a candidate in the '
choice of an election agent. He may even appoint a person under
age if he chooses to do so, though it would be very inadvisable. But I
if he engage a person who within the previous seven years has been *
found guilty by a competent court of corrupt practices, his election ;
will be void. The penalty is the same if he 'personally engage such *
a person in any capacity connected with the management of the
election, even though he be not a paid agent. In the case of an
election agent who had within seven years been found guilty of
corrupt practices it would be impossible for the candidate to deny
that he had personally engaged him, since personal engagement is of
the very essence of the appointment. In the case of any other
person, it is a question of fact whether he was personally engaged by
the candidate or not. The qualifications which a candidate should
seek in his election agent are (a) an exact and exhaustive know-
ledge of election law and practice ; (b) some experience, the
larger the better, of dealing with men of all classes and of every

6 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

variety of temper, together with the ability to recognise each variety
at sight; (c) courage, authority, and the power of rapid decision
under all circumstances, and in most cases without conference with,
or reliance upon, any judgment but his own ; (d) finally, a philosophic
imperturbability, which as an achievement in self-control yields prece-
dence only to the patience of Job, upon which (except, perhaps, in
the matter of the patriarch's habit of seeking relief for his feelings in
extended speech) it should be faithfully modelled.

But suppose the election agent makes an honest mistake as regards
the date of the commencement of candidature or in some other highly
technical detail of the arrangements 1 Well, he will have to seek
" relief." This expression " relief " will have to be used so
often that I had better explain it at once. Election law is so highly
technical, and its bristling technicalities are capable of such diverse
interpretation and application according to the temperamental bent
of the judicial mind, that in the absence of some mitigating expedient
there is scarcely one election in a hundred that would stand against
critical attack in an election petition court. The general election of
1906, for instance, provided us with a case where an important elec-
tion document had been accidentally issued without the name and
address of the printer and publisher, and with another case where a
sub-agent had paid for the hire of a conveyance to take voters to the
poll. In both these cases, but for the provision of "relief," the
respective candidates must have retired from the field as soon as the
error was discovered, or, if it had not been discovered till after the
election, they must have vacated the seat if it had been won. " Relief,"
then, is a power conferred upon an election petition court (and upon
one of the judges where the matter arises by way of application, and
not upon petition) to excuse a candidate or other person liable from
the consequence of a technical breach of, or non-compliance with, the
myriad requirements and provisions of the Corrupt and Illegal Prac-
tices Prevention Acts, so far as they are concerned with " illegal "
practices. There is (with one slight exception for the benefit of a
candidate reported by an election court to be guilty, by his agents,
but not personally, of treating or undue influence) no relief for cor-
rupt practices. No relief will be granted for illegal practices unless the
court is satisfied that the error arose from accidental inadvertence or
accidental miscalculation, and that in other respects there has been
an honest and boim fide endeavour to comply with the law. For
example, a candidate who accidentally publishes a poster without the
name and address of the printer will be relieved; but -if he had done
it deliberately, as an election stratagem, and then, having been dis-
covered, sought relief from the consequences of his wrong-doing, he
would not get it. Relief, in plain English, means the judicial accept-
ance of an excuse for an honest mistake.

As soon as the election agent is appointed he should make the
fact known, and at the same time caution the public against election
busybodies, by a printed notice, exhibited at the committee rooms, in
this form:

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 7

COUNTY OF BLANKSHIRE.

( Smith ville Division.)
GENERAL ELECTION 1910.

NOTICE.

I, John Jones, having been appointed election agent by William Smith, tiia
Liberal candidate at the above election, hereby give notice that, on account of
the provisions of the Act 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, neither the said candidate nor
I, his agent, will be answerable or accountable for any payment for goods
supplied, services rendered, or expenses incurred by any person acting, or
claiming or pretending to act, on his behalf, unless such purchase, service, or
expense has been previously authorised in writing by me (or incurred by a duly
appointed sub-agent acting within the limits of his authority).* And I further
give notice that all claims, writs, summonses, and documents relating to the
election may be sent to me as under.

(Signed) JOHN JONES.

Offices : 14, High Street, Smithville.

Subject to any special directions which he may receive from his
candidate, the election agent will have the duty of selecting the
persons who are to be employed for payment during the campaign.
The candidate is permitted to employ (1) an election agent, (2) sub-
agents in a county division, (3) polling agents — whom I prefer to call
by their older and more convenient name of personation agents, (4)
clerks, and (5) messengers. Whatever the size of the constituency
there will be only one election agent, but the number of other func-
tionaries who may be employed will vary : in the case of the sub-agents
according to the number of polling districts, and in the case of the
personation agents according to the number of electors on the register.
The number of clerks and messengers is prescribed by the Act 46 and
47 Viet., c. 51, s. 17 (and Part I. to Schedule I). In a borough you
may employ one clerk and one messenger for every 500 electors, or
fraction thereof. That is to say, if there are 1,700 electors, you may
employ three clerks and three messengers for the 1,500 electors (one
clerk and one messenger for each 500) and an additional clerk and
messenger for the odd 200 electors. In a county you may have at,
your central committee rooms one clerk and one messenger for every
5,000 electors or part thereof ; and in every polling district you may
have (in addition to your central committee room staff already men-
tioned) one clerk and one messenger for every 500 electors, or part .
thereof, in each district. If the county or borough is divided each
division is considered a separate constituency. These regulations,
however, are not an absolute restriction of the number of clerks and
messengers, but only of their number at any one time. The signi-
ficance of the statutory provisions was considerably widened by the
decision in the Walsall petition, where it was assumed without ques-
tion that for good reason one group of clerks might be substituted for
another during the course of the election, provided that on no one
day the maximum number of clerks was exceeded. Thus, if the
maximum be seven, then A, B, C, D, E, F, and G may be employed
on Monday, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and J on Tuesday, C, D, E, F, G,
H, J, and K on Wednesday, and so on. Whether this principle
could be extended so far as to permit of a complete change of clerks
and messengers every day, so that A, B, C, D, E, F, and G should

* The reference to sub-agents will only appear if the election is for a county
or division of a county.

8 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

be employed on Monday and J, K, L, M, N, O, and P on Tuesday,
with another similar alteration for Wednesday, is, perhaps, open to
doubt. At any rate, I strongly advise those of you who may be
election agents not to change the staff from day to day, but to take
your men on for the whole period of the election. In this way your
men get to know your modes of working, and you obtain an acquaint-
ance with their special capacities, so that you can get the best out
of them. Moreover, you narrow the area of danger from agency, to
which I shall allude in detail at a later stage.

As soon as it is known that an election is pending a candidate, as
well as his election agent and all those prominent supporters who are
supposed to have " influence " at headquarters, will be assailed with
requests for employment. If there is an election agent (as there
will be unless the candidate is his own election agent) the applicants
must be referred to him, and the election agent should make it per-
fectly clear that he will not tolerate interference with his responsibili-
ties by persons who will seek to force employes upon him. He will
take care to remind the applicants that if they are employed they
lose their vote, and if the employment of a voter (such as the chief
registration agent) is inevitable, he will expressly caution him, by the
service of a printed or written notice, that he must not vote. The
best way to do this is (1) to print on the form of appointment which
is given to the employe when he is engaged the words, " No elector
of this constituency who is paid by a candidate for his services may
vote at this election " ; and (2) to insert (just above the space for the
signature) in the receipt forms to be signed by the employes the
words, " I am aware that if I am a voter I may not vote at this
election/' You must bear in mind (1) that the paid worker himself,
if he is a voter and votes, is liable to punishment; (2) that the vote
will come off on a scrutiny; and (3) that unless you can satisfy an
election petition court that you did your duty in the matter of warn-
ing your workers that they must not vote, you may find yourself and
your candidate in peril of a charge of procuring prohibited persons
to vote, which is an illegal practice. In the Stepney case there was a
charge of this nature, and the judges found that the prohibited
persons did in fact vote, and that the election agent took no sufficient
trouble to prevent it. This they held to be neglect of duty, but they
did not go so far as to find him guilty of the actual offence of pro-
curing these persons to vote.

Paid canvassing is illegal. Section 17 of the Corrupt and Illegal
Practices Prevention Act provides that at an election no persons may be
employed save those enumerated in the First Schedule. Canvassers are
not included in the schedule. It will be necessary for you to take care,
therefore, that no paid agent who is employed by you in any election
work, such as that of a clerk or messenger, carries on systematic can-
vassing. I say " systematic " because Mr. Justice Bruce in discuss-
ing, at the Lichfield petition, certain canvassing by men employed
respectively as clerk and messenger, laid special stress upon its
systematic character. My late friend, Mr. H. C. Richards, K.C.,
who was a specialist in election law, always took this view that it was

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 9

only systematic canvassing that was illegal in the case of a paid
worker. He had fortified himself with the opinion of the then
senior law officer of the Crown, who thought that a paid election clerk
or messenger might canvass in his spare time, but not as part and
parcel of his duties. In the presence of such authorities as these I
almost hesitate to express a personal opinion. Yet I will say this,
that, having regard to the danger of denning what is ' ' systematic ' '
canvassing, and to the wide range of judicial opinion from which an
election court of two judges will be selected, I should myself never
allow a paid worker to canvass at all. He will use his personal
influence among his friends, of course. So much you need not
prevent, cannot prevent, and do not want to prevent But, as regards
canvassing, in any form, I should make it quite clear to every
worker, when he is engaged, that his abstinence from canvassing was
a condition of his continued tenure of office.

Among paid workers the election agent's right-hand man should be
the chief registration agent, unless he is himself the occupant of that
position. The chief registration agent knows the ropes in every part
of the constituency far better than anybody else. He will be person-
ally acquainted with a great number of the electors, so that he can tell
the election agent at once whether the acceptance of their proffered
assistance, for instance, is safe. He can tell, too, what kind of speaker
must be sent into this ward and into that ; what topics are dangerous ;
what persons and interests must be conciliated ; and he can materially
help in deciding whom it is safe to offend, when it is time to play a
strong card, and when it is desirable to temporise. The chief registra-
tion agent, as the election agent's principal assistant, will in these
multitudinous ways render indispensable aid. Technically he is but a
clerk, but actually he comes very near to being a deputy election
agent. The best plan is to have him as chief clerk at the central
committee rooms, of which he will take charge when the election agent
is away.

When the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1883
was passed, the means of communication were by no means
so highly developed as now. The chief agent, for instance,
could hardly reach every point of the constituency by means of the
telephone, nor could he, as now, have his motor-car (or flying
machine) waiting outside the central committee room. Hence the
permissive provision in that Act for the appointment of a series of
sub-agents, one for each polling district. There can be no sub-agents
in boroughs. The sub-agent is in effect a local election agent, and is,
subject to the instructions of the chief agent, the official head of his
candidate's organisation in the district to which he is appointed.
By making a careful selection of the men for the sub-agencies, by
marking out a general programme for their activity, and by allotting
to each a specific sum (which must on no account be exceeded) from
the statutory aggregate of expenses, the election agent can relieve
himself of a vast amount of detail work. But he must bear in mind
that he cannot repudiate the actions of his sub-agent. If the sub-
agent commits an illegal act the candidate will have to pay the

10 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

penalty, unless he can get relief. Section 25 (2) leaves no doubt on
this point by enacting that any act or default of the sub-agent which
would, if he were the election agent, be an illegal practice, or other
offence against the Act, is in fact to operate just as if he were the
election agent. Cases have come under my own notice where a sub-
agent has engaged a committee room in a public house, in ignorance
of the peremptory provision of Section 20 of the Corrupt and Illegal
Practices Act of 1883, which makes it an illegal hiring to have a
committee room in any building where refreshments are sold. In
the candidate or the election agent an illegal hiring is an illegal
practice, and therefore it is so in the sub-agent. There was another
case where a sub-agent, on the day of the poll, noticed that the
supply of conveyances had run short, and forthwith sent round to
the local jobmaster and hired a cab in which to take electors to the
poll. This man was perfectly honest in his ignorance. He entered
the cost of the car (with a note of the purpose for which it was hired)
in his election accounts, and thereby gave the chief election agent one
of the worst shocks he ever experienced. In this instance application
was made for relief, and, there being no opposition by the other side
(since the sub-agent's conduct was transparently honest), it was
granted as a matter of course. But had there been a petition this
affair would, of course, have formed the subject of a charge of paying
money for prohibited purposes, and the application for relief would
have raised a multitude of issues, some of which might have led to its
refusal, with fatal consequences to the candidate. For such reasons
as these my personal opinion is that it is better to work without
eub-agents.

In the various committee rooms where you would be entitled to
place a sub-agent you will do better to place either a clerk, or a local
volunteer who has the capacity and the time to keep things on the
move. Neither of these men has the plenary authority of the sub-
agent; in fact, he should have no authority to incur any but trifling
administrative expenses without the sanction of the chief election
agent, or to embark upon any policy which may commit the candidate
without the candidate's (or the election agent's) consent and approval.
This is especially the case in the matter of bills and leaflets, for
reasons which I shall at a later stage explain at length. In these
days of rapid transit the chief agent ought to have no difficulty in
making a personal visit to every important centre of activity at least
three times a week. In a borough fight he ought to do it at least
once a day. In many constituencies the train or tram facilities are
ample for the purpose. Where they are not, the energetic agent will
have his motor-car (or possibly his flying machine) always ready, and
with its aid he can do wonders in the way of vigilance, stimulus, and
control. An excess of the speed limit is not a corrupt or illega]
practice even in an election agent, but I strongly advise you as a
matter of election psychology against running risks in that direction.
If you run over Jones's dog or knock down Smith's wife it may cost
your candidate a hundred votes, quite apart from the damage and
injury which are the immediate results.

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 11

With regard to the committee rooms (which must be hired by
the election agent himself), all that I need do is to warn you of
the provisions of the First Schedule of the Act 46 and 47 Viet.,
c. 51. These provide that in a borough you may have one com-
mittee room for each complete 500 electors or fraction thereof, and
that in a county you may have (1) a central committee room and
(2) one committee room in each polling district ; and if the number
of electors in the district exceeds 500, one extra committee room for
each complete 500. Section 7 (1) of the Act provides that the hiring
of committee rooms in excess of this number is an illegal practice.
But, of course, there is nothing to prevent you from using any
number of committee rooms, always provided that they are lent to
you for nothing, so that you only pay for the number which the
Act permits. Finally, there are four classes of premises which must
not be used as committee rooms :

(1) Any premises on which intoxicating liquor is sold, whether wholesale or
retail, or for consumption on or off the premises.

(2) Any premises where liquor is sold or supplied to members of a club or
association, other than a permanent political club.

(3) Any premises where refreshments of any kind are ordinarily sold for con-
sumption on the premises [e.g., the ordinary " roll and butter " shop.]

(4) The premises of any public elementary school in receipt of an annual
Parliamentary grant.

In spite of the exception under (2) with regard to a permanent
political club, I strongly advise you not to have a committee room
on such premises. It might very well open the door to charges of
treating, which would be very difficult to disprove.

This part of the subject reminds me that you may occasionally
find yourself unable to avoid holding a meeting in a room which
forms part of licensed premises, for the reason that no other accom-
modation is available. But there are two precautions it is essential
you should take :

(1) All means of access out of the room in which the meeting is
taking place into the part of the house where drink is supplied must
be stopped up during the meeting. No person should enter the
meeting through that part of the ihouse where drink is supplied; and
the precautions taken should be such that if ia man in the meeting
desires to obtain liquor, he must go right out of the meeting into the
open air and then re-enter the house at another door. Precautions
of this kind will prevent any suggestion that the persons convening
the meeting were parties to treating..

(2) Notice should be served on the landlord by registered letter in
the form which I give below :

EUTLANDSHIRE ELECTION, 1910.
NOTICE TO LICENSE HOLDERS.

I, the undersigned, being the election agent for John Smith, a candidate at
the above election, hereby give you notice that the said candidate will not be
answerable or accountable for the cost of any meat, drink, entertainment, or
provision supplied by you to any person acting or claiming or pretending to act
on his behalf in connection with the said election, nor for any other expense other
than the sum of £1 agreed to be paid for hire of the room used by the said
candidate for the purpose of a meeting of electors at your house.

Dated January 19, 1910. (Signed) WILLIAM JONES.

To Mr. Charles Robinson, Red Lion Hotel, Mugby Junction.

12 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

As regards the personation agents, these are only engaged for the
day of the poll, and you can often get sufficient volunteers to do the
work. The novelty of a day in the polling station, watching the actual
process of balloting, attracts good men to offer their services ; and
every guinea that you can save in this way can be profitably spent in
some other direction -

Apart from the election expenses, the election agent will require to
know something of the " personal expenses " of the candidate. These
are denned by the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of
1883 (Section 64) as including " the reasonable travelling expenses
and the reasonable expenses of his living at hotels or elsewhere; for
the purposes of, and in relation to, the election." In practice, of
course, these expenses will include not only the strictly personal
expenses of the candidate, but also those which are necessitated by
his hospitality extended, within legitimate limits, to persons who come
down to help him as speakers or workers in the election. If the can-
didate is staying at a local (hotel he may entertain his auxiliaries
there and include the cost in his personal expenses. If he has his
own residence in the constituency, he may do the same, whether the
residence be temporary or permanent. This is social custom. But
the candidate may not pay his friends' fares, since that is not cus-
tomary among us. And this expenditure on entertainment must be
strictly bona fide. The circumstances must be such that the hospi-
tality is socially reasonable and is extended to persons who might
have been entertained in the same way even if no election had been
pending. If I am a candidate for a Birmingham constituency I may
entertain at a local hotel (or in my house at Birmingham if I have
one) any friends of similar social status who come from London or
Newcastle to speak at my meetings or assist at my propaganda. I
may even have champagne on the table at dinner, since it ma}7 be
assumed that my friends are accustomed to that form of refreshment
and the cost may rank among my personal expenses. But if my
friends from Newcastle happen to be colliers and I entertain them
with champagne at dinner, the transaction will probably be scrutinised
much more closely, if it should come, as an item of my personal
expenses, under notice of the election judges, since it will, in
their eyes, begin to assume a peculiar and questionable aspect.
It is not that the law objects to a collier having champagne. It is
simply the judicial jealousy of anything that looks like an illicit
influence. Much more severe will be the scrutiny if the visitors are
local colliers, because then there will be a grave suspicion that th«
expression " personal expenses " is being made to hide something
very like treating. Finally, if the colliers are voters in the consti-
tuency where I am standing, my so-called " personal expenses " will
be overhauled if the matter goes before an election petition court, and
I shall have but little chance of escaping the loss of the seat on a
charge of treating.

If the candidate is living at an hotel, then his hotel bill, plus an
allowance for travelling and incidentals, will form your total. If
he took a house within three months of the fight, it would be better

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 13

to include the whole of the expenses attaching to his tenancy. If it
were taken earlier, three months' expenditure need only be included.
If he is, and has been for a period long anterior to the election, a
bona fide resident of the constituency, so that his household ex-
penses would have been incurred whether there was a contest or not,
you might put in a month's ordinary household expenses, plus an
estimate of the additional amount sp>exit in entertaining friends and
helpers during the contest. The best way to proceed is to send a
formal letter to your candidate, immediately after the election, asking
him how much his personal expenses were, and reminding him that
if they exceeded £100 they must be paid through the election agent.
If they are under £100 you have no concern with the items. It will
be sufficient for you to put the candidate's reply, stating the amount,
among the vouchers which you file. I know of no case where the
personal expenses have been challenged. None the less, I recom-
mend you to comply strictly with the Act lest your own return should
yield the first decision on the subject.

Outside your paid staff there are two classes of workers upon whom
you will have to keep a close eye. These are (1) the more prominent
workers belonging to the local party organisation, generally called
the Blankshire Conservative and Unionist Association, or the Blank-
shire Liberal and Radical Federation, or some similar title, and (2)
the " Outside Organisations " — that is to say, the various independent
bodies who come into the constituency to assist the one side and to
embarrass the other; somefim.es to embarrass both. As the whole
point of the discussion of your relationship to these people turns on
the question of agency, it will be desirable to consider what agency,
in the election sense of the word, actually is, and what are the dangers
arising from it.

Within the scope of his authority, which is conterminous with the
area and activity of the campaign itself, the election agent is the
plenipotentiary of the candidate. The repudiation of his agency,
therefore, in the event of his being guilty of corrupt or illegal prac-
tices, is quite out of the question. The repudiation would be almost
equally difficult in the case of one joint candidate by the other, or of
any of the paid election staff, as well as the prominent and responsible
leaders of the party organisation, although their services are quite
honorary. With regard to the other active combatants (and, of
course, to a slight extent in the case of those already mentioned) there
arise the most complex questions with reference to the candidates'
responsibility for their actions — questions which, if determined
adversely to the candidate on the hearing of a petition, may cost him
a hard-won seat. There is a special doctrine of election agency
applicable to these cases, which differs very widely from the ordinary
legal doctrine of agency. The old election petition committees tried
to evolve a principle which should be elastic enough to reach instances
where a candidate sought to profit by the wrongdoing of others, while
strongly protesting that he was in no way responsible for, or capable of
controlling, their actions. The election doctrine of agency is the fruit
of their efforts. They knew that no man was likely deliberately and

14 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

openly to authorise the commission of an aqt which would, if
brought home to himself, be fatal to his election. But if such acts
were, in fact, performed and if they benefited him, then the question
arose, not whether there was agency in the ordinary legal sense (since
the precautions of the parties would prevent the existence of any
evidence cogent enough to establish it), but whether the political
relations between the persons concerned were such, in length of period
and degree of intimacy, as to establish agency in the election sense of
the term. What that sense is we cannot define in precise terms. But
I think I can give you a good working knowledge of the ' ' drift ' ' of
the doctrine.

The ordinary legal agency may be created in four ways : (1) By
express contract, (2) by implication, (3) from necessity, and (4) by
ratification. Agency by express contract is the kind of agency which
exists in the case of the election agent and his staff where there is
an explicit and specific engagement. Agency by implication
is that which is created, for instance, when a coachman, who has the
care of his master's horses, is understood to possess authority to order
corn for them as his master's agent. Agency by necessity has no
application to election work, so that the special doctrine of agency, as
applied to elections, is a modification, by way of extension, of agency
by implication and agency by ratification. For instance, assuming for
the moment that an action (based upon the alleged existence of agency
in the ordinary sense) would lie for the recovery of money laid
out in bribery at the alleged request of defendant, a candidate, the
main question would be whether, in fact, the defendant had authorised
the laying out of the money. If it could be shown that the person
who had paid the bribes, though, in fact, he was an agent of the
defendant, had in this instance been expressly prohibited from laying
out money in that way (and especially if the persons who received it
were well aware of the prohibition), the action to recover it from the
candidate would fail. But as regards the agency in the election sense,
the question would be totally different. The proof of general agency
(i.e., of agency in the ordinary legal sense) would render abortive any
protection that was sought in the express prohibition of the corrupt
acts, however honest that prohibition might have been. The corrupt
acts of the agent, though forbidden by the candidate, would, if within
the very liberally defined scope of his authority, be fatal to his
candidature.

In the ordinary sense of the word, a man cannot easily make
another his agent without being aware of it and, in the great majority
of cases, without having his eyes fully open to what he is doing.
But he may create an agent in the election sense of the word without
being conscious of what is being done and, in fact, in such a manner
that when the person is ultimately decided to be his agent nobody is
more astonished than himself. The reason for this wide difference
between common law agency and agency in the election sense was
stated in the Gloucester petition (1873) to be that where any corrup-
tion is intended the candidate is most carefully kept in intentional
ignorance of it. In the Wigan case it was said that the position of the

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 15

candidate in the election sense was analogous to that of a man who
buys a yacht to race in his name and finds a captain and crew on
board. The fact that he consents to sail with them makes them his
agents for the purpose of sailing the race in accordance with the laws
of the course. The fact is that in the ordinary relations of life a man
has very large powers of control over his agents and knows, or can
with reasonable diligence discover, who they are. But in the conduct of
an election his political fate may be jeopardised by persons over whose
actions he has little or no control, like the tradesman who canvassed
a street with him and then proceeded to the nearest public-house and
called for " drinks round and the health of the candidate." Even if
they act in defiance of his orders, where he has power to give them,
or do the wrongful act maliciously, with the intention of injuring
him, or are totally unknown to him, yet still he may find that they
are held to be his agents. This question, whether A is or is not the
agent of B at a certain election is of no great moment while the con-
test proceeds. But when the contest is over and the electors have
delivered their verdict it may become of very great consequence
indeed. For then it becomes possible for an appeal to be made from
the electorate to an election petition court, whose judgment, possibly
setting aside that of the electorate, may be very largely based upon
the individual opinions of two judges with regard to the nebulous
doctrine of agency in the election sense. The result may be that the
candidate is exposed to the risk of the very severest penalties, not
because he himself has done anything wrong, but because, in the
opinion of the judges, some person over whom neither candidate nor
constituents had any control has been guilty of a breach of election
law. These considerations will, I think, make it clear how vast the
sweep of this election doctrine of agency is. I can hardly sum up
more vividly than in the quite recent language of Mr. Justice
Channell, in the Great Yarmouth case. The learned judge said that
the " substance of the principle of agency is that if a man is
employed at the election to get you votes, or if, without being
employed, he is authorised to get you votes, or if, although neither
employed nor authorised, he does to your knowledge get you votes,
and you acc,ept what he has done and adopt it, then he becomes a
person for whose acts you are responsible in the sense that, if Ms1
acts have been of an illegal character, you cannot retain the benefit
which those illegal acts have helped to procure for you. .
That is, as I apprehend, clearly established law. It is hard upon
candidates in one sense, because it makes them responsible for acts
which are not only not in accordance with their wish, but which are
directly contrary to it."

With these considerations fresh in our minds we may go on to
consider the two classes of election workers whom I mentioned a few
minutes ago —

(1) As regards the local political association. If there is such a
body (as there is almost certain to be) the election agent should
advise his candidate to procure its dissolution as soon as the candi-
dates come down into the arena. In that manner you get rid to a large

16 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

extent of any risk as to its agency in the aggregate, and you weaken
any evidence of agency as regards the individual members. In that
way you narrow the area of the candidate's responsibility and may
save him from otherwise inevitable disaster. There is in these pre-
cautions nothing that is improper or illegitimate. The election
doctrine of agency, as I have shown you, is so unreasonably wide as
to lead to the infliction of serious hardship upon men whose only
fault is their eagerness to win a civic battle. That being the case,
you have the clearest right to prevent that doctrine from operating
to the detriment of the man whose interest it is your first duty, as
election agent, to safeguard. For that reason I recommend you to
create among the voluntary workers no formal bond whatever. Let
their only common characteristic be the support of the cause and the
candidate.

(2) The " Outside Organisations " form an element of a modern
election which does not seem to have entered into the contemplation
of those who framed the great Corrupt and Illegal Practices Preven-
tion Act of 1883. They had, in fact, no conception of the multitu-
dinous interests which take the field in a modern election — I mean
the outside organisations. Very early in your election work you will
find a number of these irregular troops in the field opening their own
committee rooms, employing their own clerks, canvassers, and
speakers, and covering the local hoardings with vast displays of
colour and argument. Some of these people will be working for
causes which your candidate represents and others for causes to
which he is opposed. If your candidate is a Unionist he may have
a powerful Tariff Reform organisation working in his favour, whilst
a Free Trade campaign will be carried on for the benefit of his
opponent. But whatever and wherever these organisations may be,
you must, if you are election agent, leave them to their own devices,
and you must seriously warn all your paid staff and all the prominent
people who would be held to be agents of your candidate, as well as
the candidate himself, that they must practise the same aloofness.
Of course, I am not suggesting anything in the nature of hostility or
offeiisiveness. If it were desirable for you to define verbally your
attitude you might say, speaking, for instance, as the agent of a
Liberal candidate, to some Free Trade organisation who had come
down and was working, " My candidate is in full sympathy with your
aims and welcomes your assistance. But he cannot in any way
officially recognise you, or work in actual association with you, nor
can he allow such recognition or co-operation on the part of any of
the persons who might be held to be his agents." I have no doubt
that at a very early date the absolute legal irresponsibility of these
outside organisations will have to be abolished, and that their position
and powers will then be regulated and defined by statute. Until
that statute exists you must adopt the attitude which is suggested by
experience of the best interpretation of law as it stands, and make it
clear that in your official capacity you are as ignorant of their
existence as one newspaper is of the existence of any other. If you
take the other course, you will make these people your agents, and if

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 17

there is a petition against your candidate there will be a charge of
omitting their expenses from your return. If they are held to be
vour agents, that charge will be fatal ; and remember, evidence that
you frequented the inside of their committee room, or were seen,
for instance, directing the pictorial adornment of the outside of it,
will go a long way to enmesh you in this awful net of agency, and
so, perhaps, to imperil the results of a long and arduous contest.

We will now take the various classes of election offences in detail,
examining the existing legal provisions with regard to each. As you
know, there are two great classes of election offences — "corrupt"
practices and " illegal " practices. Every corrupt practice is illegal,
but every illegal practice is not corrupt. The corrupt practices, in
the election sense, are bribery, treating, undue influence (i.e., intimi-
dation, threats, or menaces, for instance), personation, and the
making of a false declaration with regard to the return of election
expenses. This list is exhaustive. The illegal practices are the
minor offences, such, for instance, as providing bands and banners,
paying for the hire of conveyances to take voters to the poll, or
exceeding the statutory maximum of election expenses. Many
attempts have been made to define these two classes of offence so as
to bring the essential difference into logical prominence. For instance,
Mr. Justice Field said in the Barrow petition that " a corrupt practice
is a thing the mind goes with. An illegal practice is a thing the
Legislature is determined to prevent, whether it is done honestly or
dishonestly. Therefore the question here is not one of intention, but
whether in point of fact the Act has been contravened." Perhaps I
can make the distinction clearer by pointing out that a corrupt
practice is such that no man of ordinary intelligence could commit it
without being fully conscious that he was doing wrong. There can
be no corrupt practice without a corrupt intention. That which
lawyers call the mens rea — the corrupt or vicious mind, consciously
bent upon the performance of an act known to be wicked — must be
present and actively operative in the case of a man who bribes or
(generally speaking) treats or personates a voter. Intimida-
tion, again, is an act which must involve wilful wrongdoing.
But it is otherwise with an illegal practice. A man of the
highest character might hire a trap to take voters to the
poll without the slightest idea that he was committing an
offence against the law. Again, A. B. prepares, with his own hands,
a, placard containing certain statements which he is anxious to bring
to the notice of the electors on the day of the poll, and pays a voter
to display the placard on the wall of his house. There is nothing
ethically wrong here. But (unless the voter so paid carries on the
regular business of displaying advertisements for payment) an illegal
practice has been committed; and if A. B. is the election agent of
the candidate, " relief " will have to be obtained.

Beginning with the corrupt practices, therefore, we may say that
bribery is the deliberate purchase or sale of votes for money or money's
worth. Every person is guilty of bribery who directly or indirectly
gives, lends, procures, agrees to give, agrees to lend, agrees to procure,

18 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

offers, promises, promises to procure, or promises to endeavour to
procure any money or valuable consideration or any office, place, or
employment to or for any voter, or to or for any person on behalf of
any voter, or to or for any other person, to induce any voter to vote
or refrain from voting ; or to induce such voter to vote or refrain from
voting; or to induce such person to procure or endeavour to procure
the return of any person, or vote of any person. The offence is also
committed by the voter or other person who, either on his own account
or for another, receives, or agrees or contracts to receive the gifts,
loans, offers, promises, procurements, or agreements, either before,
during, or after an election; any person who provides money with
intent that it, or any part of it, shall be expended in bribery; and
any person who pays money in discharge or repayment of money
so expended. Acts of the same kind, where food, drink, or enter-
tainment is (or are) given will amount to treating. You will notice
that the definition of bribery penalises both briber and bribee for what
is a serious criminal offence, and therefore makes it impossible to
charge one without the other. At the root of all the many instances
enumerated there is the element of individual bargaining directed to
control an individual vote. This is the essential distinction between
bribery and treating. Bribery is performed in individual cases,
treating in the mass. Bribery is directed to incite or control the vote ;
treating, in the main, to confirm its existing tendency and to enthuse,
or at least to excite, the voter. Voters known to be favourable are
not bribed, for the act would be superfluous, but they are occasionally
treated. The giving of meat, drink, and entertainment to large
numbers of persons can be made to " square " with recognised social
conventions, so as to be explainable, if challenged, in that way.
This is not the case with money bribery, since it is not the custom to
distribute pecuniary gifts. There may, of course, be such a thing
as wholesale bribery on such a scale that the election could not pos-
sibly be regarded as the free expression of political opinion or allowed
to stand. This state of things is known as general bribery and voids
the election at common law, quite apart from statute.

Given the legal proof of the act or acts alleged to constitute bribery,
the whole question resolves itself into one of motive. Was there a
corrupt intent? That question is most difficult to answer where the
alleged bribery consists of donations and subscriptions to charitable
and other quasi-public institutions and the judges have displayed a
marked reluctance to treat as corruption this ambiguous generosity on
the part of a candidate. Of course, if it began on a lavish scale on
the very eve of the election, there would be no doubt of its character.
In other cases, however, it takes the form of long-continued gifts to
various societies and organisations. Of isolated acts of alleged private
bribery we do not hear much nowadays. Of course, nothing is easier
than for a man to swear that the candidate gave him a sovereign,
accompanying the gift with a significant wink. If the alleged act
is corroborated by other evidence and if the Court believes that the
candidate might have been rash enough to commit bribery in the
presence of witnesses, he will probably have only his own oath

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 19

between himself and disaster. I remember a case where the voter
swore that the candidate gave him a sovereign, with a hint that it
was the purchase price of his vote. Cross-examined, the voter remem-
bered the occasion perfectly well. Asked what the weather was, he
replied that it was a bitterly cold day and the ground was covered
with snow. As the election had taken place in the height of the
summer, this answer was fatal to the charge. Or take another case.
On the evening before what was expected to be a very close poll the
adult daughter of one of the candidates (who was a prominent and
successful worker on his behalf and undoubtedly his agent) visited
a voter and presented him with a small sum of money (about 2s. 6d.)
and with the contents of a basket which held a jug of cream, a dozen
eggs, and a pound of fresh butter. The man was a widower, with
two or three young children. He was a semi-invalid, living in squalid
circumstances in a wretched by-street. His political views were
doubtful, if indeed they existed in definite shape at all. The facts
were not disputed, but the voter himself was not called. He feared
that his evidence must in any case antagonise some of his friends and
frankly stated that if he were compelled to enter the witness-box he
would say that he had forgotten all the circumstances. In support
of the contention that this was an act of bribery it was urged that the
lady had not been similarly kind to any other voter and that she had
never before, and never since, bestowed any benevolence on this man.
The reply was that the lady was actuated simply by natural womanly
kindness and sympathy. These, and not any idea of securing a vote
for her father, took her to the voter's home, with her basket of dairy
produce, on the night before the poll. There was some reason to
believe that the recipient of the gift did, in fact, vote for the lady's
father, but this was not certainly known. Was this bribery ? There
was only one person who could have given anything approaching a
positive answer and that was the lady herself. If (which was denied
by herself) she gave the bounty with the intent that it should influ-
ence the vote, she was guilty of bribery. If she acted in natural
womanly sympathy with human misery, she was not. Anyhow, the
court declined to listen to any suggestion of a corrupt motive. But
you must not therefore imagine that baskets of dairy produce may
be freely distributed by a candidate's daughter on the eve of the poll.
Five baskets might, and ten Baskets almost certainly would, assume a
sinister aspect when viewed with the jealous eyes of an election peti-
tion court.

If you should be confronted, as election agent, especially at this
time of the year (November), with any questions arising out of
gifts by your candidate, you may form a sounder judgment by ascer-j
taining what has been the custom of the candidate in years gone by.i
The candidate has his country house in a certain village in the con-;
stituency. Ever since he lived there, and for years before he was a
candidate, he has sent a Christmas present — a turkey, a joint of beef,
or the like — to all the poorer villagers. Is he to do it this year ?
Well, I should advise him not to do so, with an election pending in
January. But clearly his gifts would stand upon an altogether

20 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

different footing from those of a man who, having just been adopted
as candidate in a constituency where he has had no local residence
or interests, sends out gifts at this coming Christmas and goes to the
poll in January. The principle is the same as that which we have
already formulated with regard to meetings. If the member has
always made a tour of his constituency in September and he did it
this year in accordance with annual custom, the expenses need not
worry you. If you can get them into the return by all means include
them. If you find you cannot, I think you need have no misgiving
about omitting them, on the ground that they were an annual custom
or expense, not incurred for the immediate purposes of the ballot box.
But it would be otherwise with the meetings held last September of a
candidate who was not the sitting member. They are clearly held
with a direct view to the ballot box.

If any cases of alleged treating come to your notice do not neglect
them. If they are on the other side, get a note of details and wit-
nesses, in case you want to present a petition. If they are on your
own side, find out the facts and deal with the affair in such a manner
as shall leave no doubt of your attitude. Towards the close of a hotly
contested election, some few years ago, a friend of mine, the election
agent for one of the candidates, received a letter in some such terms
as these :

Dear Sir, — As you are no doubt aware, Mr. A B has been working for Mr.
Smith (the candidate) in my bar of an evening for a fortnight or so. Having
now supplied over £10 worth of drinks to his orders I should take it as a. favour if
you would send me something on account. This is between ourselves.

Yours truly,

My friend, in asking me how he had better deal with a matter of
this kind, said he supposed the best thing would be to ignore it. I
pointed out to him, however, that inasmuch as it was impossible to
tell where the affair would end, his attitude ought to be instantly put
upon record. A reply was therefore sent, by registered letter,
expressing the agent's astonishment that the publican should suppose
he could even countenance a flagrant breach of the law, much less
that he should actually pay money for its commission. The letter
also contained a reminder to the publican that the fact of his per-
mitting systematic treating in his bar, if it came to the knowledge
of the licensing authority, might not facilitate the renewal of his
license. That ended the matter. No further claim or suggestion was
ever made. But consider — if there had been a petition, and if these
cases of treating had been brought in, how much stronger was the
position of the agent and of the candidate, with this letter on indis-
putable record, than it would have been if the episode had been
ignored, as though the agent were afraid to tackle it.

The question whether an employer might give his workmen a holi-
day on the day of the poll, without risking the suggestion that he was
thereby bribing them, and consequently, if he were an agent of the
candidate, imperilling the whole election, was for some time the subject
of considerable perplexity. The doubts are now set at rest by 48 and
49 Viet. c. 56, which legalises the giving of a holiday under these
circumstances, provided (1) it is given to all alike; (2) is not given
as an inducement to vote for any particular candidate ; and (3) is not

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 21

refused to any person in order to prevent him voting for a particular
candidate.

Before leaving this subject I want to say a word about the not
uncommon practice of providing what is called " refreshment for the
workers " 011 election day. The provision of meat and drink in this ,
way is excessively dangerous, even if it is bona -fide intended only for
the convenience of the candidate's avowed and whole-hearted sup-
porters. They may introduce persons who are not whole-hearted
supporters, in order that the latter may share the bounteous provision
which has been made. In such circumstances the materials for a
good pi'hna facie case of treating are instantly created. Again, it
only needs proof that the meat and drink were provided as a reward
for services rendered to transform the whole transaction into a case
of illegal payment or of illegal employment. My advice is, provide
no refreshments in this way. I ought to add that a wager, if designed
to corrupt a voter, will vitiate the vote. Suppose the candidates to
be A and B. A voter, C, who is in necessitous circumstances, is a
supporter of A, and intends to vote for him. D, the secret agent of
B, bets C £100 to 1 that B will not be returned. C has now a large
interest in the return of B, for whom he ultimately votes, in the
desire to win the bet. Clearly this vote cannot stand.

Next to bribery and treating, among the corrupt practices, comes
undue influence. There are few men who possess no influence at all
among their fellow-creatures, and as long as they employ it properly
the Legislature neither does nor indeed can prevent its operation.
You may employ all your powers of persuasion upon a voter; you
may even appeal to religious sanctions in aid of your appeal. So far
you are on safe ground. But if, the voter being a man of only
moderate intellectual calibre, you go 011 to threaten him with
spiritual pains and penalties if he does not vote as you desire, and
still more so if you threaten to take away his employment, or subject
him to physical restraint or violence, you are guilty of undue
influence. The offence is defined for the first time in Section 5 of 17
and 18 Viet. c. 102, and this section, repealed and substantially
re-enacted by Section 2 of 46 and 47 Viet. c. 51, is now the statutory
authority on the subject. The section provides that " every person
who shall directly or indirectly, by himself, or by any other person
on his behalf, make use of or threaten to make use of any force,
violence, or restraint, or inflict or threaten to inflict by himself or by
any other person any temporal or spiritual injury, damage, harm, or
loss upon or against any person in order to induce or compel such
person to vote or refrain from voting, or on account of such person
having voted or refrained from voting at any election, or who shall
by abduction, duress, or any fraudulent device or contrivance, impede
or prevent the free exercise of the franchise of any elector, or shall
thereby compel, induce, or prevail upon any elector either to
give or to refrain from giving his vote at any election, shall be guilty
of undue influence." By Section 3 of the same Act undue influence
is made a corrupt practice, and so becomes capable (if committed
by a candidate or his agents) of avoiding an election, subject to

22 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

precisely the same considerations with regard to motive as bribery and
treating. Tt is, however, a much more impalpable and insidious
influence than either of the other two of these triplets of corruption.
The use of brute force or violence is not a common form of undue
influence in our day. It is too easily susceptible of proof, and too
difficult of excuse or explanation, for it to be a safe weapon to use.
It is in its other forms that it is used nowadays, where it is used at
all, and, of course, there are cases where that which looks, at first
sight, like undue influence, may, upon closer scrutiny, be seen
to be perfectly innocent. As Mr. Justice Willes said in
Blackburn, " Where an employer has a mixed motive for
dismissing his man, where he has a reason for getting rid
of him apart from his politics, is the employer bound, in
point of law, to abstain from getting rid of him merely because of
the general election coming on ? Well, I think that in point of law,
as an abstract question, he is not bound to abstain. But I think any
sensible man or sound lawyer advising him would say, ' You may do
so; but take care how you do so, because, unless you prove clearly
that you have a good ground for discharging your servant apart from
the political one, it is inevitable that your discharge of him will be
imputed to your dislike, not of the man himself, but of his politics.' "
Occasionally this species of undue influence takes a curious form.
In Northallerton a person threatened to give up his pew in a Noncon-
formist chapel unless the minister voted in a certain way. This was
held to be intimidation. On the other hand, direct spiritual intimi-
dation, the actual threat of divine displeasure if the vote is cast in a
certain way, is extremely rare in England, simply because it would be
ineffective. I need not therefore trouble you with any discussion
of it.

The expression " fraudulent device or contrivance " in the section
will cover such expedients as abduction, by a trick, and for a time
only, whicjh is not an uncommon election device. The voter is got
out of the constituency on the day of the poll, and kept away till the
ballot-boxes close. Another of these obscure forms of undue influence
consisted in the attempt to mislead the voter, by means of some
fraudulent device or suggestion. For instance, the voter receives a
specimen poll card with the " X " marked opposite the name of a
certain candidate, and a printed intimation that unless he marks his
ballot-paper in that way his vote will be lost. What the voter fre-
quently understood (and what, it was alleged, he was intended to
understand) in these cases was that unless he placed his " X " oppo-
site the name of the candidate in whose interest the misleading
missive had been sent to him, his vote would be lost. Still another
and curious device, which is probably fraudulent within the meaning
of the section (see Northallerton, 1 O'M. and H., 169), is worked by
means of " pairing." A and B, voters on opposite sides, agree to
pair. B, in pursuance of a fraudulent intent, breaks his tacit pledge,
and votes, thereby destroying A's vote by a discreditable trick.
This, device, however, is now so rare as to be negligible as an elec-
toral influence.

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 23

The next of the corrupt practices is personation, a term which
explains itself. The legal definition is contained in 35 and 36 Viet.,
c. 33, s. 24, which provides that a person shall be deemed guilty of
personation at an election who " applies for a ballot paper in the
name of some other person, whether that name be that of a person
living or dead or of a fictitious person, or who, having voted once
at any such election, applies at the same election for a ballot paper in
his own name." This double voting by the same man we may call
self -personation. For instance, let the voter reside in Mile End and
have a shop in Whitechapel. He will be on the register in both con-
stituencies; but as they are themselves only divisions of the old
borough of the Tower Hamlets, the voter would, if he voted on both
qualifications at a general election, have given two votes in what is,
in fact, only one constituency. Hence, as soon as he has voted on
one qualification, he is guilty of personation if he attempts to vote
on the other at the same election.

The established machinery for the prevention and detection of
personation consists of the professional vigilance of the returning
officer or the presiding officer and his assistants, supplemented by the
partisan activity of the personation agents. The returning officer,
as you know, is the responsible head of the whole official machinery
at an election. A presiding officer is the responsible head of a single
polling station only, and, of course, acts under the instructions of the
returning officer. The returning officer may himself, if he choose,
be the presiding officer at one of the stations. If the presiding officer
has doubts about the identity of an applicant for a ballot paper, he
must, if required to do so by one (or both) of the personation agents,
" put the question " — that is to say, he administers an oath and then
asks, " Are you the same person whose name appears as Alfred
Brown on the register of voters now in force for the [constituency,
described with technical exactness] ? (6 and 7 Viet., c. 18, s. 81.)
The form of this question should be carefully noted. It is not an
inquiry whether the voter's name is Alfred Brown, but whether he is
the person represented on the register as Alfred Brown. Thus if the
person on the register appears by mistake as Charles Brown
it will be quite proper for Alfred Brown (who is really the elector
to whom the entry refers) to take the oath and proceed to
vote. If the question is not directed against the identity of
the voter, on the suggestion that he is personating some
other person, it may take the other form allowed by the same
section, and directed against self-personation: "Have you already
voted either here or elsewhere at this election for [the constituency,
described with technical exactness] ? " As this part of the electoral
machinery is extremely important, we will go into it with a little
more detail when we come to consider the act of voting. At this
point I need only remind you that there is no such thing as an
authorised personation, however honest and even praiseworthy the
motives of the personator may be. If A, an eager but infirm politi-
cian, anxious that his vote should not be lost, sends B to personate
him, with instructions how to mark the ballot paper, B may quite

24 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

honestly perform his mission as between himself and A, but he will
none the less be guilty of the full offence. Personation, and the
aiding, abetting, counselling, and procuring of personation are not
only corrupt practices, but felonies. In this case, however, as in that
of the other corrupt practices, the corrupt mind is essential to the
offence. A voter whose name is William Smith, but who appears on
the register as John Smith, may properly apply for a ballot paper
hi the name of John Smith, for he is the person signified by that
name on the register. But if the voter actually is John Smith, and
William Smith seek to obtain the ballot paper by giving the name
of John Smith, it will be very difficult to save him from a conviction
for personation.

The last of the corrupt practices is committed by a candidate or
election agent who knowingly makes a false declaration (before a
justice of the peace) verifying the accuracy and completeness of the
return of election expenses. This offence is wilful and corrupt
perjury and is (by Section 33 (7) of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51) also
made a corrupt practice, so as to entail the disabilities for a corrupt
practice, which are not attached to the ordinary offence of perjury.
Mere failure to make the return (as distinguished from making it
falsely) is only an illegal practice. These provisions with reference
to falsity of the return are properly drastic, but no charge of wilful
falsity has ever arisen under them in connection with the return of
the expenses of a Parliamentary candidate. The charge of omitting
various items from the return, which almost always forms part of the
petitioner's case on an election petition, has to do with technical, not
corrupt, omissions. That is to say, it is concerned with expenses
which the election agent, in the bona fide exercise of his discretion,
did not consider to be election expenses in accordance with the prin-
ciples which we discussed when we were considering those questions.

In all these offences there is a " corrupt " element, and they are
all corrupt practices. There is, however, one case where a " corrupt "
element only creates an illegal practice. The payment, or promise of
payment, of money to induce or procure the withdrawal of any
person from being a candidate is, if done " corruptly," only an illegal
payment. I mention it here to make it clear that, in spite of the
use of the word " corruptly/' the offence is not a corrupt practice.

The corrupt practices (the existence of the corrupt element being
demonstrated) are all crimes. Personation is a felony, punishable
on indictment by imprisonment, with hard labour, for a term not
exceeding two years. The other corrupt practices are misdemeanours,
punishable on indicitment by imprisonment, with or without hard
labour, for a term not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding
£200. A person may (provided he does not elect to be tried by a
jury) be found guilty of corrupt practices by an election court. In
that case the maximum penalty is six months' imprisonment, with or
without hard labour, or a fine not exceeding £200. A witness on
the trial of an election petition is not permitted to refuse to answer
a question on the ground that the answer may criminate, or tend to
criminate, himself, or on the ground of privilege. But if he answers
truly he is entitled to a certificate of indemnity from the court, which

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 25

bars a prosecution in the event of his evidence having revealed, or
suggested, his guilt. In this way the facts are elicited, while the
witness is not (provided he answer truly) forced to criminate himself.
The Public Prosecutor is represented by counsel at the trial of every
election petition, in order that his attention may be called to any
offences which are disclosed in the course of the proceedings.

In addition to the penalties under the criminal law there are
grave disabilities. The report of an election court that a corrupt
practice (other than treating or undue influence) has been com-
mitted by, or with the knowledge and consent of any candidate, or
that treating or undue influence has been committed by such candi-
date, renders him incapable for ever of being elected for the county
or borough in respect of which the offence was committed, and if
he has been elected, his election is void. If the candidate is guilty
by his agents (and not personally) the incapacity lasts for seven years
from the date of the report of the election court to the Speaker, and
if the candidate has been elected his election is void. A person con-
victed on indictment of any corrupt practice is incapable, for seven
years from the date of the conviction, of being registered as an elector,
or of Doting at any election, or of holding any public or judicial office,
and if he holds it, it is ipso facto vacated. Treating at an earlier
election may imperil the validity of a later one.

I have already explained the distinction between corrupt and
illegal practices. The illegal practices owe their definition and pro-
hibition to the inquiries into the working of the electoral system
which took place after the general election of 1880. It became
evident at the time that, besides the old-fashioned election offences,
such as bribery, treating, and undue influence, there had sprung into
existence a new class, which found their origin and sustenance either
in excessive, but colourable, expenditure on objects which were prima
facie legal, or else in the lavish provision of the most mischievous
stimuli, such as bands of music, flags, banners, and cockades. As
recently as 1880 the election expenses of a distinguished modern
statesman, a member of Mr. Asquith's Government, included £967
for the conveyance of voters to the poll. Such expenditure has now
(as we shall see) been made an illegal practice. Strictly speaking,
those acts which are generally known as illegal practices fall into
two groups : (1) illegal practices, technically so described, and (2)
illegal payments, employment, and hiring, which are only illegal
practices if committed by the candidate, his election agent, or a sub-
agent. The two classes of offence will be clearly distinguished in the
course of our discussion. We will take the various offences in the
order of their importance.

(1) False Statements (Illegal Practice).

The most important of the illegal practices is the offence which
was first created by the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act
of 1895, prohibiting the making or publishing of a false statement
with reference to the personal character or conduct of a candidate
for the purpose of affecting his return. The offence is not committed

26 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

if the person charged can show that he had reasonable grounds
for believing and did believe that the statement was true. The
candidate is not liable, and the election cannot be avoided, unless
the false statement was made by the candidate himself or by the
election agent, or unless the candidate or the election agent
authorised, or consented to, or paid for, the circulation of the false
statement, or unless an election court reports that the election of the
candidate was in fact procured, or materially assisted, by the false
statement. The Act of 1895 was passed in consequence of the out-
rageous growth of the practice of slanderous personal attack, as dis-
tinguished from political criticism, at elections. The only remedy
for these attacks, prior to the passage of the Act, was an action at
law, which would not have been heard till long after the successful
dissemination of the libel had, perhaps, cost the victim his seat.
The cases decided under this Act up to the present time are not
numerous. A false statement that a candidate was guilty of lying,
cowardice, and bribery was held within the Act. So also was a
statement that there was a " dark passage " in the life of the candi-
date, the reference being to a family tragedy for which the candidate
was not in the slightest degree responsible. The Court of Appeal
took the same view of a false statement that a candidate had locked
out his pitmen for six weeks till stocks were cleared out and coal
reached fabulous prices. After that it was alleged that the candidate
found ' ' that his ' conscience ' would not allow him to starve the
poor miner any longer." But where the gravamen of the charge
was that the candidate's private conduct, as an employer of labour,
was inconsistent with his public professions as a politician, Baron
Pollock held that these were not statements of fact with regard to
the " personal character and conduct " in the sense contemplated by
the Act. Similarly Lord Justice (then Mr. Justice) Buckley declined
to regard as within the Act a statement that the candidate was a
" Radical traitor, always found on the side of Britain's enemies,"
and one of a band of persons who " were, during the summer of
1899, in correspondence with the Boers." Finally, the Court of
Appeal declined to consider as within the Act the statement that a
candidate had obtained the support of a prominent politician by
" false pretences," or the suggestion that, as the Lord Chancellor
put it, he ''feigned political opinions in order to obtain support."
The act charged upon the candidate in the alleged false statement
need not be necessarily an unlawful one. Baron Pollock pointed out
that such a charge as that of shooting foxes, brought against a candi-
date in a hunting constituency, or of drinking a glass of sherry, made
with reference to a temperance advocate who is a candidate, are calcu-
lated to bring these persons into social odium, and are within the
Act. But this dictum is limited by the local character of the social
odium in the case of the candidate who is said to have shot foxes.
That allegation would not be within the Act if made against the can-
didate for Whitechapel, where the shooting of a fox excites no
indignation.

A point which has so far been almost entirely overlooked is the

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 27

fact that under this Act a false statement of fact made by the
candidate himself with regard to his own personal character or conduct
is an illegal practice. For example, A, a candidate, makes a certain
statement about the personal conduct of B, his opponent. B replies
that it is false, though in fact it is quite true. Here are two offences
against the Act. B has made a false statement about himself by deny-
ing what he knows to be true : and he has also made a false state-
ment about A by calling him in effect a liar. But all this applies
only to false statements as to the personal character and conduct of a
candidate. No false statement with regard to his political conduct,
or -with regard to political affairs generally, is illegal in the present
state of the law, -unless, of course, it is of such a character as to be
within reach of an action for libel or slander.

Having regard to the drastic character of the Act relating to false
statements, I should very strongly urge you not to allow a single
bill or leaflet to go out till you have personally passed it. There
are, in fact, three urgent reasons for this 'extreme caution. The first
is the tactical consideration. It is essential to eliminate anything
in which zeal or unwisdom may have exposed your candidate to a
possible loss of support, either by giving offence to his own people
or by laying him open to a deadly retort from the other side. A
leaflet 'which will strengthen you in one constituency might work
your ruin in another. In the second place, the imprint, which is
an absolutely essential compliance with rbhe Act of 1883, has a knack
of being overlooked. Here is an attractive card, issued by the late
Sir F. Dixon-Hartland in Uxbridge at the last election, without any
imprint. The omission necessitated an appeal to the courts for relief
and might have been a serious matter in the event of an election
petition. In the third place, you have to bear in mind the provi-
sions of this " False Statements Act," to wit, the Corrupt and Illegal
Practices Prevention Act of 1895, which we have just been consider-
ing. A distinguished member of the Bar, destined for high office in
a future Government, told me that he regarded a possible breach of
that Act as so easy and yet so perilous, that he never allowed a single
item of printed matter to be struck off till he personally (and not
only his agent) had critically scanned every line.

(2) Improper Payment of Election Expenses (Illegal Practice).

The question of election expenses has already been discussed, and
it would be superfluous to retr averse the ground. All that I need do
is to remind you that the Acts prohibit (1) any incurring of expense
or any payment in excess of the statutory maximum of election
expenses ; (2) any payment otherwise than by or through the election
agent (other than the small payments which are excepted, like the
" half a crown's worth of cartoons ") ; (3) any payment of accounts
sent in after the expiration of the statutory period for their receipt
(fourteen days after the declaration of the election) ; (4) any payment
whatsoever (unless it be made by leave of the court) after twenty-
eight days from the declaration of the election; and (5) any pay-
ment which is otherwise legal, if, being over forty shillings, it is not
vouched for by a bill stating the particulars and by the receipt.

28 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

(3) Payments for Conveyances (Illegal Practice).

Section 7 (a) of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, enacts that no payment shall,
for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of a candidate
at any election, be made on account of the conveyance of electors to or
from the poll. The prohibition includes payments for the hiring of horses
or carriages, as well as for the stabling and baiting of horses gratui-
tously sent from a distance for the purpose of conveying electors to
the poll, or for railway fares, or otherwise. In the case of the person
making or receiving the payment (whether candidate, election agent,
or any other person) it is an illegal practice. T!he lending of any
public, stage, or hackney carriage for the conveyance of electors to
the poll is prohibited. In the lender a breach of this section is an
illegal hiring. The offence subjects the offender to penalties (a fine
not exceeding £100). If you write to ask for the loan of carriages, put
in your letter some such w*ords as these : " I ought, perhaps, to add
that the candidate is forbidden by law to make any payment for the
use of carriages which may be lent to him, or to their drivers, or to
pay for food for their horses ; and he may not use, even gratuitously, a
carriage which is ordinarily let out for hire." The fact is, that the
wide scope of the Act makes it impossible not only for the candidate
to pay for the Conveyance of voters to the poll but also for him to
accept, or for jobmasters to give, the gratuitous use of vehicles which
are on otbe»r occasions let out for hire. An enthusiastic jobmaster,
who closes his yard to business on the day of the poll, and bona fide
gives the use of all the vehicles for the purpose of bringing voters
to the poll, would, therefore, commit a grave breach of the law. I
have met with one or two cases where railway companies have offered
to run special trains for outvoters if the candidate or candidates
would guarantee a certain number of passengers. T'o do so would be
a breach of the Act and you must beware of it.

The prohibition of payments for the conveyance of voters to the
poll is subject to two exceptions : (1) A voter may pay for such a
vehicle to carry him to or from the poll. If, however, on his way
thither be gives a "lift" to a fellow-elector, he -has been guilty of
a technical breach of the law, unless his companion share the expense,
as well as the luxury, of the ride. (2) The other exception is a special
statutory provision — that is to say, payment is permissible (46 and 47
Viet., c. 51, s. 48) for the conveyance of voters across "the sea or a
branch or arm thereof" (if they cannot reach the poll otherwise), and
such payment forms no part of the statutory maximum. Few, if
any, of you are likely to act in a constituency where this permission
will become operative.

(4K Payments for Exhibiting Bills (Illegal Practice).

Section 7 of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, makes it an illegal practice
to pay, or contract to pay, money to any elector on account of the
use of any house, land, building, or premises for the exhibition of
addresses, bills, or notices. The person who pays and the person
who receives are alike guilty. But payment may be made to, and

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 29

received by, an elector whose regular business it is to exhibit bills
for payment. Such, of course, is the familiar bill-poster.

(5). Committee Rooms in Excess (Illegal Practice).

A payment or contract for payment for committee rooms in excess
of the number allowed in the First Schedule of the Act (46 and 47
Viet., c. 51) is made an illegal practice by Sec. 7 (1) (c).

(6). Voting by Prohibited Persona (Illegal Practice).

Voting by any person who knows that he is prohibited by statute
from voting, or knowingly inducing such person to vote, are offences
which, by Section 9 of the Act, 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, are made
illegal practices. This provision, the breach of which is in some
cases a misdemeanour, must not be confused with the prohibitions
directed against personation, which is a felony. Section 9 is intended
to meet such cases as that of the voter who, being1 employed (or
having been employed, see 30 and 31 Viet., c. 102) for pay-
ment at the election, nevertheless votes thereat. The enactment also
reaches the election agent or other person who, knowing of their in-
capacity, procures these persons to vote. I memtioned the Stepney
case to you at an early stage of our discussion.

(7). False Statement of Withdrawal (Illegal Practice).

Publishing a false statement of the withdrawal of any candidate
for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of another
candidate is an illegal practice (46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 9 (2) ). There
was an alleged instance of this as recently as the Bermondsey election

(8). Disturbing a Public Meeting (Illegal Practice).

The Public Meeting Act, passed in the closing days of the session
of 1908, creates a new illegal practice. The operative clause runs as
follows :

" Any person who at a lawful public meeting acts in a disorderly
manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which
the meeting was called together shall be guilty of an offence, and if the offence
is committed at a meeting during the progress of and in connection with a
Parliamentary election, he shall be guilty of an illegal practice within the
meaning of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices (Prevention) Act, 1883, and in
any other case shall on summary conviction be liable to a fine not ezceeding £5,
or to imprisonment not exceeding one month."

The whole of these provisions turn upon the exact meaning which
will be attached to the word " disorderly/' Doubtless there will soon
be decisions to guide the inquirer. So far very little use has been
made of this Act.

The offences so far denned and discussed exhaust the list of acts
which are illegal practices in any person, whether candidate or elec-
tion agent or not. The remaining offences are illegal practices only
if committed by the candidate or the election agent. The difference
is important. An illegal practice, committed by or with the know-
ledge and consent of any candidate, renders him incapable (unless he
obtain " relief ") for seven years of being elected to, or of sitting in,

30 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

the House of Commons for the particular county or borough in respect
of which the offence was committed. If elected, his election is void.
In other persons the offences which we are now about to examine
only amount to illegal payment, employment, or hiring, as the case
may be. The punishment is a fine not exceeding £100, and a five
years' incapacity for voting, or being registered as an elector. Only
two of these offences will require any lengthened consideration.

(9). Banners, Music, Marks of Distinction (Illegal Payments).

Section 13 of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, enacts that a person who
knowingly provides money for purposes contrary to the Act shall be
guilty of an illegal payment. Section 16 goes on to provide that no
payment or contract for payment shall be made, for the purpose of
promoting or procuring the election of any candidate, on account of
bands of music, torches, flags, banners, cockades, ribbons, or other
marks of distinction. But what is a banner? In an 1895 election
there were large bills (about 30 by 20) with the portrait of the can-
didate. These were exhibited in the windows and on the walls of the
houses of his supporters, but as the wind and rain proved destructive
some of them were mounted on canvas, with a lath at top and bottom r
and in that form were hung, or nailed, in various positions.
On a petition these were held to be banners. So highly technical is
the law that although the candidate was not charged, in the petition,
wifh providing banners, but only with providing the laths at top
and bottom, the charge was fatal. There was a suggestion that the
bills, weighted with the laths, had been carried in processions or slung
on lines across the streets, to the knowledge of the candidate, and
possibly this influenced the decision. " If," said Baron Pollock,
" these linen portraits were given out in large quantities to enthu-
siastic supporters . . . any reasonable person would know that
some of them would almost certainly be used as banners." You
noticie, therefore, that even if you do not intend the articles to be
used in an illegal manner, still, if they are reasonably capable of
being so used, and you supply them, you may be within the Act.

I should strongly advise you against the use of the picture postcard
or any of approximately similar size, with a portrait of the candi-
date. You may not intend it as a mark of distinction, but if it is chal-
lenged and the Court holds it to be one, you may provide a second
edition of the Walsall judgment. In that case a small card, with a
portrait of the candidate and the words, "Play up, Swifts" was
employed as a hat card and was held to be a mark of distinction. Relief
was refused and the seat was lost. It is perhaps a question whether
portraits of candidates with the exhortation to " Vote for - — ," and
provided with a string for hanging them up, which are scattered
abroad at every election are not " marks of distinction/' though
many millions of such cards have been printed, distributed, and
displayed during the last two or three general elections, and at in-
numerable by-elections, so far without legal challenge.

No similar difficulties of interpretation arise in regard to the bands
of music, torches, cockades, or ribbons. These are commonly

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 31

employed at elections, and as their provision is in itself no offence, it is
in election practice only necessary to take care that neither the candi-
date nor his election agent makes any payment, or any contract for
payment, in respect of their supply. These prohibitions will only
cause you trouble where you have provided some part of the election
equipment in such a way as to be naturally capable of employment
in defiance of these sections. The hat cards which brought disaster
at Wal&all were " naturally capable of abuse," and avoided the elec-
tion. But the cutting of the candidate's name and portrait from the
front page of the election address, where it is quite properly dis-
played, ought not to penalise him, unless he personally suggested
«nd approved it. The distinction here suggested was that actually
drawn by the late Mr. Justice Hawkins in Pontefract. The learned
judge took the view that the mere use of a card as a " mark of dis-
tinction ' ' did not necessarily make the provision of a card an
infringement of the Act, unless, as at Walsall, the cards were ordered,
used, and paid for with the full knowledge of the electorally improper
purpose for which they were designed, or for which, at least, they
might be employed. Incidentally, let me caution you not to accept
the offers of large firms to supply "rosettes" 'by the thousand at a
cheap rate. These " rosettes " are undoubtedly a " mark of distinc-
tion."

(10) Bills Without Printer's Name (Illegal Practice).

The printing, publishing, or posting of any bill having reference
to the election, without the name and address of the printer and
publisher on the face thereof, is an illegal practice in candidate or
agent (46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 18). No election has ever been
avoided for non-compliance with these provisions. Doubtless a case
of deliberate omission of the printer's and publisher's nam>es from a
virulent leaflet issued by a candidate or his election agent will have
serious consequences for the offenders when it occurs ; but so far all
the cases under the Act have had their origin in bona fide inadver-
tence. Relief, under those circumstances, is granted as a matter
of course. A prudent election agent, who is aware that the expres-
sion " bill " in the Act is very wide and vague, will have the name
of the printer and publisher even on his noteheads. I have shown
you a pretty card issued at the last election in technical breach of
this section. Relief was applied for and obtained.

(11) Procuring Withdrawal of Candidate (Illegal Payment).

The payment, or promise of payment, of money to induce or pro-
cure the withdrawal of any person from being a candidate is, if done
"corruptly," an illegal payment (46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 15). No
case under these provisions has ever arisen, so that it is impossible to
say with any authoritative precision what meaning attaches to the
word " corruptly."

(12) Employment in Excess of Permitted Number (Illegal
Employment),

The question of paid employment at elections has already engaged

32 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

our attention and need not be further discussed. The same remark
applies to the two following offences : Lending or Employing Car-
riages or Horses (Illegal Hiring) ; Committee Rooms on Licensed
Premises (Illegal Hiring).

In closing our consideration of the corrupt and illegal practices,
lot me give you two final Jrints. In the first place, let me say that
it is quite useless for us to shut our eyes to the fact that efforts
are constantly made to entrap the candidate or election agent into>
the commission of some illegal act. An agent once showed me
about fifty or sixty letters which had reached his candidate from
various parts of. the constituency about ten days before the election.,
all of them telling a piteous tale of distress in. some form or other,
and begging for a few shillings by way of assistance. Inquiry
showed these letters to form, in the aggregate, what is called a
"put-up job," destined to support a charge of bribery. In another
case there came a letter from a voter who had left the constituency
and now lived at a considerable distance, expressing his enthusiasm
for the candidate whose agent had, received the letter, and stating
that only the lack of the fare would prevent his coming to vote. If
a 10s. postal order were slipped into an envelope and posted to him
nobody but himself would know about it, and his vote would be
secured. Inquiry showed that arrangements had been made for a
couple of witnesses to be present when the expected reply with the
10s. arrived, so that there should be a clear case against the agent
for paying for tlie conveyance of an elector to* the poll. In. a third
case, after the lapse of the fourteen days after the declaration of
the poll, during which all claims must be sent to the election agent,
there came a letter from the secretary of a local institution asking for
3s. 6d. This money was undoubtedly due as payment for a slight
use wihich ihad been, made of a room at the institution during the
contest, and the money would have been paid if the application had
been made within the statutory interval. As it was not, the agent
(had overlooked it. 'But the applicant, in asking for it, added that
he knew the application was out of date, though, as the institution
was a needy One, he hoped the money might be sent to him privately,
and its source would not be disclosed. In that case also it was a
plot to entrap ^the election agent into a technical offence which, if
committed, migiht have been fatal to- his candidate.

My other hint is this : When you are confronted with some un-
expected election problem, the first thing is to look up your law in
Rogers or Ward orFraser. If you can find a specific provision, or a
parallel case, you (have the means of a prompt and accurate judg-
ment^ always bearing in mind that the judicial discretion, where it;,
is called into play, will not always be employed in the same way,
even under circumstances which appear to be prima facie identical.
The court will grant or refuse relief largely in accordance with the
spirit in which the work has been done. There is a singularly
happy and lucid passage in the judgment of Mr Justice Grove*
(Boston,, 1874, 2 O'M. and H., 164-165), where he says: " It is as

MANAGEMENT OP ELECTIONS. 33

well that the public should know that when a judge pronounces an
opinion upon a certain state of facts he takes into consideration the
existing state of knowledge, and the existing circumstances; but'
when upon a second occasion persons seek to avail themselves of
that ruling, and think they can do a wrong act, simply trying to
keep within the particular facts which upon the former occasion
„ were held not to be corrupt, they frequently do acts which must be
held to be corrupt. It may be that, upon precisely the same apparent
state of facts, an act which is not held corrupt at one time may be
held corrupt at another time : because knowledge goes on, and if
the second act is a mode of effecting a corrupt purpose, merely
getting out of a judicial decision upon tihe previous state of circum-
stances, then that which in the first instance is not corrupt would
in the second instance become corrupt. It is well that persons
should know that these matters must depend upon the circum-
stances, and that people cannot successfully evade the law by simply,
as they think, getting ou/t of the terms which the judges use in their
explanation of the law." Let me give you an instance : A and Z,
rival election agents, have bothr slightly exceeded their maximum.
A has made all his payments by cheque, and produces his pass-book,
cheque-book, and the used cheques. He will almost certainly get
relief. Z had, no election bank account and kept no cash book, but only
rough memoranda, which he says he has destroyed. On several occa-
sions during the election he drew large sums in gold from has private
account. He will probably be refused relief, because of his apparent
lack of straightforwardness and candour. He may have been quite
honest. He may be only an unmethodical man. But appearances
are against him, and the judges will certainly be influenced against
him by his carelessness. If, on the other hand, you cannot find the
specific point in a statute or a decision, or in the opinions of one of
the learned editors of your book, the best tKing is to act in the
manner which, in your judgment, would best command itself to the
approval of an election court. Whai the court wants is honesty,
straightforwardness, a compliance with the spirit of the Acts, and
an absence of endeavour to deceive or to mislead so as to obtain
an improper advantage. If your work exhibits those characteristics,
you will go before an election court with the maximum of advan-
tage; and, on the other hand, your opponents, in scrutinising your
work for the purpbse of discovering a foundation for charges against
you, will have the minimum of opportunity for successful formula-
tion.

The function which we call the " nomination " is technically the
election. It is, however, only completed, as the election, when there
are no more candidates than vacancies. This is rare in our stren-
uous political life, so that in the majority of cases the election has
to be adjourned in order that a poll may be taken ; and it is this
poll which we generally call the election. > The returning officer
must give public notice of the day of the "nomination." He must
fix two hours — 'between ten and three — during which he will attend
to receive nominations, and his attendance must continue for one

34 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

liour after the end of the original two hours. He must, during the
few days intervening between notice of the nomination and the actual
nomination itself, supply any registered elector with a form of nomi-
nation paper. The form provides for the nomination by two regis-
tered electors and for the signatures of eight others, who must
assent to the nomination. These signatures must be checked with
the most scrupulous care, so as to ascertain that the names are
those of registered electors and that the signatures correspond in
every respect with the names as they appear in the register. For
instance, if one of your signatures is that of John Brown and he
appears on the register a,s William Brown your paper will probably
be declared invalid. Even after the most exhaustive checking it is
desirable not to rely on one paper but to have others in reserve.
The returning officer himself will check the nomination paper, which,
he proposes to accept, and it is the usual thing for the agents to
agree that, as far as they are concerned, they will take no technical
objections to each other's papers. The best plan is for the papers to
be handed in by the candidate or agent, who should attend early in
CP-.&6 of some unforeseen complication. As soon as the returning
officer has accepted a nomination he placards the particulars of it
outside the building where the nomination takes place, and the
process is then complete; but the candidate or agent will be well
advised to wait until the expiration of the three hours, or to be within
instant call, in case of an attempt to raise a technical objection.
Where objections are raised the returning officer's decision is final
if he disallows them. If he allows them an appeal lies on petition.
If after the lapse of one hour from the close of the two hours
appointed for the nomination there are no more nominations than
vacancies, the persons nominated are declared elected. This is an
unopposed return, which, judging from current appearances, is likely
to be a rather rare phenomenon at the pending election.

The returning officer will give the election agent notice of the
amount which he requires to be paid as security for his charges at
the nomination. This amount (which is fixed within a certain very
handsoniie maximum 'by the Parliamentary Elections (Returning
Officers) Act of 1875) forms 110 part of the statutory amount of
election expenses. If you propose to pay it in bank notes you need
do no more than have them with you and put them down with
the nomination paper which you present. But if you desire to pay
by cheque or to give security, it will be desirable to ascertain that
the returning officer .agrees to your proposal, since, unless the money
is found or security given within the three hours, your candidate
will be deemed to have withdrawn.

The date of the poll falls within certain statutory limits, depen-
dent upon the time of the issue of the writ. Within those % limits
it is the custom for the returning officer to fix the date after confer-
ence with the election agents, who generally meet him for that p<ur-
pose. You will be guided in your own opinion by the views of your
candidate and his supporters. Personally, I have a rooted objec-
tion to a Monday poll, because it almost necessarily involves the

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 35

working of the staff on Sunday. In country constituencies a Satur-
day poll is open to the objection that the votes cannot be counted
till Monday. If there should happen to be no election agents' con-
ference with the returning officer on this subject, you are perfectly
justified in writing to him on the subject and urging your own views,
with due respect to his position.

There are a few administrative provisions with regard to the poll-
ing mechanism with which I need not deal in detail. These relate
to the provision of the polling stations themselves and to the public
notice of their position and the description of the voters who are
allocated to them ; the provision of secret compartments in the sta-
tions, as well as of ballot papers and ballot boxes, the appointment
of the polling station staffs, and the maintenance of order in the
polling station. The polling stations should open and close with
absolute punctuality. At the close there will probably be some per-
sons inside the polling station who have not actually recorded their
votes when the clock strikes. The practice is for these persons to *
be permitted to vote, but, of course, to prevent any others from
entering the station after eight p.m. In Worcester, 1880, it was held
that the door of the polling station might be closed 'before the time if
there were sufficient voters within the station to occupy the presiding
officer till closing time. With all respect, I doubt very much if that
is now good law and I should certainly not advise any presiding
officer to act upon it.

The various presiding officers, who are in supreme control (subject
to the general authority of the returning officer), must act with abso-
lute impartiality. When we come to consider the counting of the
votes, I will give you a rather striking instance of the infringement
of this rule by a presiding officer. At the opening of the poll the
presiding officer is required to show the ballot box quit© empty to
the persons (i.e., his own staff and the personation agents who are
then in the polling station), and then to lock and seal it and to
place it in a position where it can be under his continuous observa-
tion. As long as polling proceeds slowly, or at polling stations to
which only a small numiber of voters are allocated, the presiding
officer may well give out the ballot papers himself; but, in a busy
station and during the " rushes " which take place in the dinner hour
and from six to eight in the evening, it is better that he depute the
actual giving out of ballot papers to his clerks and content himself
with supervision, and particularly with the close observation of the
ballot box and of the official mark on each paper before it is placed
in the box.

This " official mark " is a matter of great importance. Let me
explain what it is. Clearly, an expert printer, by polling early and
making a mental note of the type in which the ballot papers were
printed, would be in a position to run off a number of forgeries
which might be introduced into the ballot boxes by other voters
later in the day. It is to prevent the introduction of forged ballot ••
papers that the official mark is put upon each paper at the time
of issue to the voter. The mark is now generally produced by

36 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

perforation so as to appear on the front and back of the paper, though
its absence from the front will not invalidate the paper. Its precise
nature is the returning officer's secret. Sometimes it is a purely
arbitrary design, and sometimes a combination of letters — " J. W. C.'y
and "A. R. X.," for instance, are official marks that occur to me.
When a given official mark has been used in a constituency the same
mark may not again be used for seven years. There are now per-
forating machines which admit of being changed so as to produce a*
multiplicity of designs in order to meet the necessities of this pro-
vision.

I think we are now in a position to pass in critical survey the whole
of the official personalities and the mechanism which they manage.
First of all, there is the returning officer, who is the person in
supreme control of the proceedings. He appoints deputies, who must
be of full age and who are-, under himself, in supreme control at the
polling stations. They are called presiding officers. The returning
officer himself may, if he thinks proper, be the presiding officer at
one of the polling stations. To assist the presiding officer, there
will be a certain number of clerks at each station. Next, there will be
the polling agents, better known as personation agents, appointed by
each candidate, to attend the poll for the purpose of detecting attempts
at personation. Finally, there are the voters themselves who
come in to vote. With the single exception of one class of persons, every
voter must vote at the polling station to which he is allotted and
at no other. The excepted class is the police. A constable who is
a voter may, perhaps, be employed on the election day at such a
distance from his own polling station that it would be impossible for
him to vote there. Under the Police Disabilities Removal Act,
1887, any constable who is likely in that way to be incapacitated from
voting is entitled, within the seven days previous to the poll, to-
receive a certificate from the chief constable, the production of which
to the presiding officer will entitle him to vote at any polling station
in the constituency. It is desirable that the election agent, if he
expects his candidate to receive the police vote, should courteously
call the attention of the chief constable to these provisions and ask
that they may foe brought to the notice of the local police force in
order that no votes may be lost. A chief constable will always do
this.

Perhaps the best way of making clear the duties of these various
elements of the polling station staff will be to suppose the entrance of
r. few applicants for ballot papers and to note the procedure in the
case of each. This mode of observation will also enable us to get
a clear idea of the nature of personation, which I promised to
discuss in some detail. The first instance is the normal case. A
voter enters and applies for a ballot paper. The returning officer
inquires name and address. "Richard Roe, 115, High Street."
The presiding officer turns to his register, finds Richard Roe at that
address, his registered number being 5816. He notes that there is
no objection to the voter on the part of the personation agents. He-
then tears a ballot paper from his book, marking on the counterfoil

MANAGEMENT OP ELECTIONS. 37

the number 5816, so that in case of a scrutiny it can be discovered
what ballot paper was issued to Richard Roe. The voter retires to a
compartment, marks his paper, folds it, shows it, with the official
mark, but not the "X," visible, to the presiding officer, puts it in the
box, and leaves the station. The next applicant for the ballot paper
gives the name of William John Roberts, of 20, North Street. Refer-
ence to the register by the presiding officer shows that the registered
voter is William James Roberts. " That's a mistake," says the appli-
cant. "I am the only Roberts at that address." It may be that the
mistake will already have been noted by the registration agents and
that the personation agents have a note of it in their marked registers,
or it may be that Roberts is a well-known, local man, so that the
presiding officer sees at once that there is merely a mistake in the
name, and, consequently, issues the ballot paper. But if Roberts
is not well known, one of the personation agents may request the
presiding officer to put the question, which he must then do. In
the present case, if it is a borough election, the question (which
must be put in the very words of the statute, 6 and 7 Viet., c. 18., s.
81 (a), and in no other words) will be: " Are you the same person
whose name appears as William James Roberts on the register of
voters now in force for the borough of Shrewsbury 1 " The voter
says he is. If the personation agent still remains unsatisfied he may
request the presiding officer to administer the oath. In that case the
words will be these :

"You do swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that you are the
same person whose name appears as William James Roberts on the
register of voters for the borough of Shrewsbury?"

You will note the form of the question arid the oath. The voter
is not asked if he is William James Roberts. He is asked if he is the
same person whose name appears as " William James Roberts," so that
if he unquestionably is the Roberts whom the register intends to
designate he can safely give the affirmative reply or take the oath.
If not, he will be guilty at least of a misdemeanour and, probably, of
the full offence of personation, which is a felony. Let us take two
or three other imaginary cases in further illustration of the law and
practice as to personation. The first is that of an applicant who
gives the name of Philip Robinson and his address. A ballot paper
is about to be issued when one of the personation agents asks that
the oath be administered. His marked register shows that Philip
Robinson is dead and he knows that the registration agent would not
have so marked it if there were the slightest doubt about the fact.
The so-called Philip Robinson declines to take the oath and makes
for the door. But the personation agent informs the returning
officer that he verily believes and undertakes to prove that the person
who has attempted to vote is not the person whose name appears in
the register. On that information the presiding officer must give
the alleged offender into custody. His verbal orders to a constable
are sufficient warrant for the constable's action.

In this connection I need hardly impress upon those of you who
will be responsible for the preparation of the personation agent's

^O PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

registers, or who will act as personation agents, the absolute necessity
of being quite certain about the facts before you take any steps
which may end in an arrest for personation. The news of an unjus-
tifiable arrest would do irretrievable injury to the side in whose
interest it was effected unless, indeed, it took place so late in the
day that it could not become generally known before the poll closed.
Moreo'ver, damages (not less than £5 nor more than £10) may have
to be paid to a person so charged with personation without reasonable
and probable cause. These damages may be assessed (within the
statutory limits) by the justices before whom the case comes, and the
consent of the injured party to accept the money operates as a bar
to all further proceedings.

I want you to notice particularly that in the instance we have just
discussed the person attempting to vote is alleged not to be the real
voter. He has, therefore no valid claim to receive a ballot paper,
and his offence is complete at the moment when he has applied, in
spite of the fact that his attempt was at once detected. In the next
case we will discuss a personation where there is a valid claim to a
ballot paper. Charles Dickens applies for a ballot paper. ' You
have already voted," says the presiding officer. Mr. Dickens insists
that he has not voted. He has travelled some distance, and has only
just arrived. He could not possibly have voted, he says. The pre-
siding officer's marked register, however, is decisive on the point that
a ballot paper has been applied for in the name of Charles Dickens
and given out. What has happened then becomes clear. Somebody
was aware that Mr. Dickens lived at a distance and was not well
known in the constituency. Therefore this ingenious partisan decided
to personate him. As Mr. Dickens 's identity is established he has a
clear claim to receive a ballot paper. His position differs from that
which we have just considered, because he is the person whom he
claims to be, while the other man was not; and yet, if the presiding
officer issues a ballot paper to him, we shall have two ballot papers
issued to one name on the register, which is out of the question.
Under these circumstances the presiding officer will have recourse to
a small stock of pink ballot papers, from which he will take a paper
for Mr. Dickens, making a note of the facts of the case. This paper,
however, Mr. Dickens will not put in the ballot box, but will return
to the presiding officer. It will not be included in the counted votes,
but if there is a scrutiny the earlier personated vote will be cancelled
and the genuine vote on the pink paper will be admitted. Such a
vote is called a " tendered vote." It may happen, of course, that
the personated vote will be found to have been recorded for the same
candidate as its genuine counterpart, in which case the process of
adjustment will make no difference to the aggregate. I remember
some extraordinary instances of this kind of accidental personation,
and your own experience will, in course of time, supply you with
many curious cases.

One other class of personation requires some brief consideration.
As the law stands at present a voter may possess qualifications in
many different constituencies. Thus he may have county votes in

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 39

Northumberland and Cheshire, and borough votes for King's Lynn
and Wolverhampton. All these he* may exercise if he choose. But
if he has votes in more than one division in the county of Cheshire
or of the borough of Wolverhampton, he may only exercise one such
vote at one election. Thus a voter who is on the register for
Stepney (which is a division of the old borough of the Tower Ham-
lets) may vote there at the General Election if ihe choose : but may
not also vote, at the same election, in St. George's and Mile End,
even if he be on the register for qualifications in those divisions. If
he does (he is guilty of personation ias soon as he applies for the
second ballot paper. As a rule the voter is called upon to decide
for which qualification he will vote, and the other or others are
" starred," to indicate thiat the voter may not vote on those quali-
fications. But cases of duplex and triplex qualifications constantly
elude observation till they are discovered in the course of prepara-
tion for the poll, so that it becomes necessary to provide against the
record of second and third votes by putting the question to the
voter. Thus, Peter Robinson is found to be on the register both
for the Harrow and the iEmfield divisions of Middlesex. The!
Enfield election takes place first, and you are agent in the Harrow
division. You will instruct your personation agent, if Peter Robin-
son presents (himself to vote, to ask the presiding officer to* put the
question, " Have you already voted at this election for any other
division of the county of Middlesex ? " If Robinson admits that he
has, he will be refused a ballot paper. If he declares that he has
not, he must have a paper; but if his declaration be false, he is
guilty of personation. Strictly speaking, an election agent and his
personation agents are supposed to search, for personators without
regard to partisan considerations. But in practice it is the custom
to divide the duties, so that each agent devotes himself to the ex-
posure of personations which, would be disadvantageous to his own
candidate.

At the close of the poll the personation agent should bring his
marked register away 'v^ith taim. It is necessary that the election
agent have it, in case it should be desirable to make immediate
inquiry into any cases of personation. Instances occur where the
presiding officer attempts to take possession of these registers, and
to prevent the personation agents from conveying them to the elec-
tion agents. The personation agent should be instructed to firmly
but courteously inform the presiding officer, under these circum-
stances, that he declines to give up the marked register to anybody
but the election agent. In case of threatened trouble, the returning
officer may always be relied upon to restrain the undue zeal of the
presiding officer in this matter.

'Before the day of the poll it will be necessary for you to decide
upon your list of scrutineers to attend the counting of the votes.
The returning officer will give notice to the election agent of the
time and place where he intends to< count the votes. At the same
time he will tell you how many scrutineers he proposes to admit
on behalf of each candidate, and he will probably remind you that

40 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

each of these scrutineers, before the can be admitted to the counting
room, must have made a declaration of secrecy before a justice of the
peace. The candidate and the election agent are entitled to be pre-
sent as a matter of right; the rest by favour of the returning officer.
As a rule, you will select a few of the most active and influential
supporters of your candidate to attend him at the final scene. The
chairman of the former association (dissolved on the eve of the con-
test) will doubtless be one, the chief registration agent another.
They ought to be wide-awake people, for the result, in a close fight,
may conceivably depend upon their seeing that all doubtful ballots
are weeded o>ut. They should be people with isteady heads, who will
not allow their feelings, whether of gratification or dissatisfaction, to
disturb the orderly procedure of the counting room, where the return-
ing officer is absolute master of the situation. It is better to keep
your candidate's wife out of this function unless you are absolutely
certain of her steady nerve and power of self-control.

Taken altogether, in fact, this function is the. most trying of all,
unless it is the delivery of judgment on an election petition. The
procedure has local variations, but in the main it always takes this
form. The sealed ballot boxes stand in full view on a table. Around
that table are other tables, forming an enclosed space. Inside this
are the returning officer and the official counters, who actually handle
and count the ballot papers. Outside it, on the other side of the
tables, are the candidates, their agents, and their scrutineers, who
simply observe and supervise the counting but do not touch the
ballot papers. When all is ready for the count to begin, the seals of
some boxes are cut and the papers tumbled out on the tables, the
boxes being exhibited empty to the scrutineers. It is usual at this
stage to check the papers by simply counting their number so as to
.ascertain that all the issued papers are there. Thus, if the returning
officer reports that he issued 390 papers, there should be 390 in the
box. If there are one or two less, the fact is probably a result of
the action of that class of voter who takes his ballot paper away as
a souvenir of the proceedings and yet remains under the impression
that he voted. If there are more papers in the box than the presid-
ing officer issued, there may be (as, in fact, there were at a fairly
recent election) forged (ballot papers. But that is not a very likely
contingency and we need not pause to consider it.

Several boxes will no doubt be in process of checking at the same
time. As soon as the checking is complete, the papers will be mixed
in accordance with the statute and the actual sorting will then be
commenced. While the checking is going on, however, the election
agent and his scrutineers will have an 'opportunity of forming a
general opinion whether the voting at the various stations, as shown
by the ballot papers, tallies with their ideas of the party strength or
weakness in the respective districts. You have here an infallible
test, infinitely superior to the most careful and elaborate canvass in
the world. The truth comes out at last, sometimes as a rather unwel-
come revelation that what yo<u imagined to be one of your ^strong-
holds is really dead against you. Sometimes the revelation is quite
the other way. At a certain polling station I was once told by a

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 41

locally eminent authority that there would not be twenty voters for
a certain candidate. In the result there were at least 200. You
have a perfect right to obtain this information as to the political
colouring of the various wards or districts. If the opportunity comes
do not neglect to take it.

The exact process adopted in the count will depend upon the
conditions of the contest. If there are only two candidates for a
single seat, the counting is simply a sorting of the respective votes
into separate heaps. If you have five candidates for two seats there
will be many varieties of cross voting, and in such instances there
is sometimes no attempt to sort the ballots, but the votes are credited
on counting sheets. Whatever the process, it is the business of your
scrutineers to watch it closely, so that there is no miscredit or mis-
.sorting and so that doubtful votes are put aside for adjudication by
the returning officer. In a very close fight the result may depend
upon this vigilance, and if you subsequently have reason to believe
that the declared figures were wrong you can only have a recount by
lodging a petition and depositing £1,000. As the sorting proceeds, it
is usual for the respective papers to be counted in bundles of fifty or
a hundred. These bundles are in turn arranged in separate piles.
It is very desirable that the election agents should personally
check the bundles. There have been cases where, by in-
advertence (and rarely, perhaps, (by design) three or four votes for
Smith have been at the top of the bundle while all the rest of its
contents were ballots for Jones. To guard against that eventuality,
an election agent should request permission for himself and the other
agents to go inside the ring and personally check the bundles.

Before the result is declared the returning officer will adjudicate
upon the disputed ballot papers. This adjudication, again, may
affect the result, and hence the election agents should watch it closely
and if necessary make notes of cases where they are dissatisfied with
the returning officer's decisions. Precisely similar defects on ballots
for opposing candidates can generally be settled by pairing.

In other cases it is necessary to possess some knowledge of the
facts and principles upon which the validity of ballot papers depends.
I will state the principles, and I will then show you a number of
reproductions of disputed ballot papers, to which those principles
have been applied either by the judges on election petitions, or by
the election petitions officer, or by returning officers. These prin-
ciples are :

(1) The paper must bear the official mark, at least on the back.

(2) The intention of the voter must be clearly indicated. If it
is doubtful (or not indicated at all) the ballot paper is void.

(3) Any writing by which the voter can be identified will invali-
date the vote, though that is not the case if the writing is only of
such a character that he might be identified. Thus the voter writes
" Philip Roberts " on his ballot paper and there is a Philip Roberts
on the roll of voters. The vote is void. But if Smith be a candi-
date, and the voter makes his X and under it writes the word Smith

42

PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

that vote is good. The voter might be identified by his writing,
but you cannot put it higher and say positively that he can be.

(4) Voting for more candidates than the voter is entitled to do
is generally cited as a source of invalidity. It is, however, only a
special case of uncertainty.

I have (here a number of enlarged reproductions of disputed ballot
papers, some taken from the leading legal text books on Election
Law, ,a,nd some collected from my own experience. All of them
have been adjudicated upon either by the judges, or by the return-
ing officer, or by the " prescribed officer " who presides with a recount
taken in pursuance of the prayer of an election petition.

JONES

s

1

WILLIAM JONES,

of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

D

2

SMITH

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,

F

Manchester,

Draper.

1

JONES

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,

One

Liverpool, Grocer.

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,

Too

Manchester,

Draper.

(REJECTED.)

(REJECTED.)

The above are two " freak " ballot papers, both of them obviously
invalid. " S D F," I suppose, stands for Social Democratic
Federation. These two curiosities — both of them actual cases from
London ballot boxes — may remind you that even in these days of high
political intelligence the voter does extraordinary and apparently
quite futile things.

1

JONES

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

O

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

JONES.

1

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer,

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

*

(REJECTED.)

(VALID.)

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS.

43

These last two (page 42) are papers which represent the activity of
the voter who will not put his " X," but prefers to put something else.
The paper with the " Q " was rejected by the judges as invalid. The
other, with the star, was admitted, the mark being, so to speak, only
an embroidered edition of the statutory "X." In contrast to this
rejected ballot with the " O," however, take this valid paper, which
has only a single stroke :

1

JONES

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

/

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

(VALID.)

We may now take a few illustrative cases of ballots which bear
written characters in addition to, or in place of, the " X." Here are
two instances:

JONES

1

WILLIAM JONES,

of 21, High Street,

Liverpool, Grocer.

SMITH

X

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,

LW.

Draper.

1

JONES

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

XR

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

(REJECTED.)

(VALID.)

These papers give good instances of the rule that the vote is bad if
the voter can be identified, but not if he might be. The full initials,
L.W. (and much more, of course, the full signature, which is some-
times written), afford a means by which the voter can, with a fair
amount of certainty, be discovered. But the simple " R " may be the
initial of the Christian name or the surname, and identification would
be an absolute impossibility. There is, however, one apparent

44

PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

exception, even to this rule, which, perhaps, we can best illustrate by
another group of ballot papers :

JONES

1

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

Smith

1

JONES

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

Jones

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

(REJECTED.)

(REJECTED.)

JONES

Jones

1

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

X
X

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

(VALID.)

The rejections here are based (a) upon the absence of the " X,"
which the Second Schedule of the Ballot Act directs shall be used in the
marking of the paper, and (b) upon the writing, as affording a means
of the identification of the voter. But you will notice that in the third
case, where there is a very complete compliance with the Act as regards
the " X," the other objection is not fatal. There was, however, a hint
in the Wigtown case that the use of a peculiar ink, or pencil of unusual
colour, to mark the paper, might void the vote, if the voter were well
known as a user of that kind of ink or pencil. But merely accidental
marks on the ballot paper will not invalidate it.

JONES

1

WILLIAM JONES,

of 21, High Street,

Liverpool, Grocer.

2

SMITH

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,

X

Manchester,

Draper.

•

(VALID.)

In this case the round smudge mark was apparently made with

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS.

45

the thumb. Even where the " X " was opposite one candidate's name
and the smudge opposite the name of the other, the vote was held good.
The same principle applies where the superfluous marks are even
more definite, provided they do not amount to a distinct attempt to
vote for more candidates than a voter is entitled to do. Thus :

1

JONES

WII.UAM JOKES,
of 21. High Street.
Liverpool. Grocer.

X

jf

2

SMTTH

JOHN SMITH, of
22. Lord Street,
Manchester.
Draper

£

JONES

1

WILLIAM JONES,

of 21. High Street,

Liverpool, Grocer.

•**s~

••••••••••^

2

SMITH

JOHN SMITH, of
22. Lord Street,
Manchester,

—••«•«••—.

X

Draper

(VALID FOR JONES.)

(VALID FOR SMITH.)

In the left-hand specimen there is a distinct " X " for Jones, and
the various marks in Smith's space, whatever else they may be, are
not " X." So, again, in the right-hand specimen, there is a distinct
" X " for Smith, and the other mark, though it looks like " X," is not
in the proper place. If it had been, the vote would probably have
been rejected. This last instance is taken from the Cirencester
scrutiny and has been judicially decided ; but I confess that in a
similar case, with only a ballot paper like this between my candidate
and disaster, I should feel the reverse of comfortable. I shall show
you an even more delicate instance at a later stage. On the other
hand, the mere misplacing of a single " X ;; will not invalidate the
vote. Thus :

X

JONES

1

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

1

XJONESX

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

SMITH

2

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

(VALID.)

(VALID.)

46

PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

JONES

1

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21, High Street,
Liverpool, Geocer.

X
2
X

SMITH

JOHN SMITH, of
22, Lord Street,
Manchester,
Draper.

X

(VALID.)

Here you have the " X " (or two or even three of them) unmis-
takably allotted to the candidate who is the voter's choice, so that
these cases present no difficulty. But if the vote, though near the
space belonging to a given candidate, is not within it, the vote is bad.
Thus:

1

WILLIAM JONES,

of 21, High Street, Liverpool,

Grocer.

JOHN SMITH,

of 22, Lord Street, Manchester,
Draper.

(REJECTED.)

But if there is a " X " in the proper place, the mere fact that there
is another " X " outside the space will not cause the rejection of
the vote :

2

WILLIAM JONES,

of 21, High Street, Liverpool,

Grocer.

JOHN SMITH,

of 22, Lord Street, Manchester,
Draper.

X

(VALID.)

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS.

47

The most crucial of these questions arises when the " X " extends
from the space allotted to one candidate into that allotted to the
other. Thus :

JONES

1

WILLIAM JONES,
of 21. High Street,
Liverpool, Grocer.

...

2

SMITH

JOHN SMITH, of !
22. Lord Street,
Manchester.
Draper.

A

1

JONES

WILLIAW JONES,
of 2l.H»tfhStreet,
Liverpool, tiroc^v.

X

2

SMITH

JoiftM SMITH, of
22. Lord Street,
Manchester.
Diaper.

(VALID FOR SMITH.)

(VALID FOR JONES.)

The rule is that the vote is good for that candidate in whose space
the intersection of the two lines of the " X " occurs. In the left-
hand paper above the intersection is in Smith's space, so that the vote
is added to his total. The right-hand instance represents the judicial
decision in the Cirencester scrutiny. It certainly seems to me, how-
ever, with great respect, that this is a case where the vote might well
have been held void for uncertainty, on the ground that the voter
seemed to have desired to vote for both candidates. The single " X "
opposite Jones's name, if it stood alone, would undoubtedly be a good
vote for him. The single " X " opposite Smith's name would also be
quite good if it stood alone, for the intersection on two lines of the
" X " is in his space. You will find that the learned editor of Rogers
has his doubts about this paper, too.

Last of all, I will show you a couple of ballots of quite abnormal
type. The first displays a case where the voter not only exhibits in
the proper way his preference for Jones, but also evinces his dislike
for Smith :

1

WILLIAM JONES,

of 21, High Street, Liverpool,

Grocer.

X

ITH,

of 22, Lord Street^fcfenchester,
Draper.

(VALID FOR JONES.)

48

PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

This paper might well be said to show a double indication of a
single and very definite intention. But what shall we say of this?

1

WILLIAM JONES,

of 21, High Street, Liverpool,

Grocer.

X

(VALID FOB SMITH.)

This paper was judicially held a good vote for Smith, on the ground
that there was a distinct " X " marked opposite Smith's name. But
it is, of course, arguable that what the voter wished to do was to
obliterate Smith's name from the ballot paper and to leave Jones in
clear possession of the field.

I mentioned a case of " tinkering " with the official mark. In
that case the presiding officer at a station for 400 voters was a
strong opponent of candidate A. A very close fight was expected.
About 330 electors voted, of whom twelve were found to have wasted
their time owing to the absence of the official mark from the ballot-
paper. Such a percentage of spoilt papers was itself a proof of the
grossest negligence by the presiding officer; but when it appeared
that the whole of the twelve papers were in favour of candidate A,
it became evident that not negligence, but another influence alto-
gether, ihad been at work. What had happened was that the pre-
siding officer, employing his local knowledge of the persons who
were likely to vote for candidate A, hjad invalidated their votes (and
attempted to influence the result of the election) by deliberately
omitting the official mark from their ballot papers. On a very close
poll his device would have changed the political complexion of the
constituency and would naturally and inevitably have led to his
own prosecution.

If the votes of two candidates are equial (I believe the ©quality of
three candidates has never yet occurred in our election experience)
the returning officer may give a casting vote if he is a registered
elector of the constituency. Otherwise a returning officer may not
vote. If he declines to give a casting vote, or has not one to give,
he must return the names of both candidates by endorsing the double
return on the writ. It is then for the candidates to claim the seat
by petition — that is to say, by means of a scrutiny. It seems that
in the meanwhile both members may claim to be sworn and to take
their seats, but neither can vote.

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 49

When the final result has been arrived at it will be declared in
the usual way, and you will proceed to wind up the whole affair, so
far as your candidate is concerned, by making up your return of
election expenses. All persons who have any claims upon you as
an election agent must send them in within fourteen days of the
day on which the declaration of the poll is made, which may be
the day of the poll itself, or the day after, or even a Monday after
a Saturday election. Any which do not reach you within that time
are statute barred, and cannot bo .admitted without leave of the
court. Within a further week — that is to say, within twenty-one
days of the declaration — all admitted claims must be paid. Any
not paid within that time must appear in your return as " unpaid "
or " disputed " claims, and can only be settled by leave of the court.
Within a further fourteen days (that is to say, within thirty-five
days of the declaration of the poll) the return of election expenses
must be sworn by you and the candidate, and transmitted to the
returning officer — preferably by registered post or registered parcel,
since that furnishes you with independent evidence of the fact of
transmission. Only the transmission need take place within the
thirty-five days. It is not necessary for the return to actually reach
the returning officer within that period.

The best way to go to work in the compilation and completion of
the return is to print a number of (handbills containing a notice of
the provisions of the Act with regard to the presentation of claims
within fourteen days, and to post them immediately upon the
declaration of the poll to all persons whom you know to have claims
upon you. If any known claims have not come in within, say, ten
days, you will save yourself much trouble by writing and asking for
them, pointing out that if you do not get them they cannot be paid.
When you have done so much, you have done all that can be
expected. If any claimants do, in fact, omit to send in their claims
after these reminders, you can only explain that the claim is now
statute barred, but that if they like to sue you in the County Court
you will appear and state the facts, and admit the debt if it be
genuine. If judgment is given for the claimant, that operates as
leave to pay. Meanwhile the claim will have to go in your return
of election expenses as an ^unpaid claim."

The returning officer will send you an account of his own charges,
together with a cheque for the balance (if any) which remains out
of the amount you originally paid to him as security for his expenses.
This account you must file with the return of your own election
expenses, though, of course (as I have already told you), it forms
no part of the statutory maximum within which you are restrained.
A candidate or election agent may tax the returning officer's charges
— that is, he may object to them before the Mayor's Court in the
City of London, and before the County Court elsewhere in England.
It is quite possible that he may obtain reductions, though they are
hardly likely to be worth the trouble involved in getting them.

When the votes have been counted, then, and the return duly
made, there still remains one power, and only one, which, can review

50 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE

the result, and if necessary set the election aside. That power is
possessed by Parliament itself. But we have done away with the
ancient system under which Parliament actually sat in judgment on
the delicate questions of law and fact that arise on an election peti-
tion. The trial of election petitions at the bar of the House soon
led to the establishment of what was practically a rule, that the
decision should be in favour of the voters who had returned the
Ministerial candidate. The Act 10 Geo. III., c. 16, therefore, trans-
ferred the trial to the hands of committees, chosen under that
statute. This mode of trial, again, was ultimately found unsatis-
factory. Since 1868 the duty of trying election petitions has
devolved upon one, and since 1879 upon two, judges, chosen from a
rota selected annually by the other judges. The judges report their
findings to the House of Commons, which in that way preserves and
makes manifest its own jurisdiction in the matter of its own member-
ship. As, however, the reports of the judges are never challenged
(the nearest approach to a challenge was the brief debate on one of
tihe 1906 petitions), their determinations are, in effect, as final and
as authoritative as if they were rendered in pursuance of their own
proper and ordinary judicial functions. The fiact that the judges
sit -as delegates of the House of Commons furnishes the reason why
legal etiquette does not permit a member of the Bar who is also a
member of the House to .appear as an advocate on the trial of an
election petition.

Petitions fall into four well-defined classes (petitions, recriminatory
petitions, recounts, and scrutinies), and you will save yourself from a
great deal of intellectual mistiness if you endeavour to comprehend
quite clearly what they are : (1) There is the ordinary petition brought
by A alleging that B's election was void Obecause of certain offences
which he is alleged to have committed, either personally or by his
agents. (2) But A, if he was a candidate at the disputed election, may go
further. He may say not only that B was not elected, but that, if the
facts are examined, it will be found that he himself (A) was really
elected. That is to say, he claims the seat. In that case B may
reply by saying, "Even if I was not duly elected, you were not, for
you had also committed offences against the election law." That is
to say, B retaliates with a "cross-petition," or, as it is technically
termed, a recriminatory petition, which will be tried after the original
petition is disposed of. (3) A may desire only a recount of the votes.
He may be dissatisfied with the decision of the returning officer with
regard to some of the disputed ballot papers, or he may have reason
to believe that a bundle of fifty votes was misplaced at the last
moment. The recount will probably take place at the Election Peti-
tions Office at the Royal Courts of Justice, and only the prima facie
aspect of the papers will be taken into account. That is to say, the
aspect of the papers as they stand is conclusive at a recount. Even if
you could identify the paper which was marked by a man whom
yooi now know to be an unnaturalised alien, you cannot object to it
on that ground. If it is plainly and properly marked it will be
counted. (4) But by embarking upon the fourth class of petition (the

MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS. 51

scrutiny) you can, so to speak, get behind the ballot papers and
scrutinise the qualification of the voters who marked them. In that
case you will be ordered to furnish your opponent with particulars
of the votes to which you intend to object, and the grounds of your
objection. You will object to the vote of Johann Niersteiner on the
ground that he is an alien; to that of Benjamin Jones on the ground
that he was employed for payment at the election ; to the vote
recorded in the name of Daniel Mason on the ground that Mason
was in the hospital on the day of the poll and must, therefore, have
been personated. And in this last case you may go to a good deal of
trouble to prove that Mason, who is a political opponent, was per-
sonated, and you may satisfy the judges that he was. But when the
ballot paper is turned up it may be found that Mason was personated
in the interest of your own candidate, so that you have struck a vote
off your own poll. That risk is one of the terrors of a scrutiny.

If a candidate, or his supporters or advisers, should think that
there is a case for a petition of a^iy kind, they will, as far as possible,
sift and consider the evidence upon which they propose to rely. If
they are satisfied of its soundness they will have a petition presented.
This is done by lodging the petition at the Election Petitions Office
at the High Court of Justice. With it, or within three days of its
presentation, a sum of £1,000 must be lodged or security given to
that extent. The petitioner or petitioners must be a person or
persons who voted or had a right to vote at the disputed election, or
else some person who alleges that he was a candidate thereat.
Generally speaking, a petition must be presented within twenty-one
days of the receipt, by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, of the
return to the writ on the strength of which the disputed election
was held. But when the petition alleges a specific payment corruptly
made, by the member, or on his account, or with his privity, since
the date of the return, then the petition may be presented within
twenty-eiglit days of such payment. And if the election is challenged
on the ground of an illegal practice revealed by the return of the
expenses (e.g., the omission of items which ought to be there) the
petition must be presented within fourteen days after the receipt
of the return of expenses by the returning officer. Finally, if the
petition alleges a payment made by the member or his agent in pur-
suance of an illegal practice, then it miay be presented within twenty-
eight days of the payment or other act upon which it relies. It is
usual, however, to present the petition within the twenty-one days
which I first mentioned ; and as the case will then be only in a very
undeveloped stage, the petitioner will probably allege every election
offence known to the law — bribery, treating, undue influence, per-
sonation, illegal practices, false statements, illegal payments, and
illegal hiring. When the return of election expenses is filed (fourteen
days after the twenty-one days within which the petition must be
lodged), the petitioner may possibly apply for leave to amend his
petition by charging expenses omitted from the return, false declara-
tion as to election expenses, and so forth. But before the case comes
to trial he will be ordered by the court to furnish to the respondent

52 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS.

what are called " particulars " of all these charges and to do it in a
certain form — that is to say, he will have to give names and addresses,
dates, and definite statements. For instance, as regards bribery, he
will have to transform 'his vague general allegation in the petition
into separate specific instances and to furnish, in each case, the name
and address of the person bribed, the name and address of the person
who bribed him, the amount or nature of the bribe, and the date of
its paymient. Failure to furnish all the ordered particulars, or to
furnish them in the precise manner specified by the court, will lead
to the charges all being struck out at the trial. I have seen a long
array of charges vanish at one swoop because they were not in the
form ordered by the court. From this point onwards the conduct of
the petition ceases to be a matter of election law pure and simple, and
becomes rather one of the collection of evidence. At this point, there-
fore, I bring my necessarily brief survey to a close.

THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL
SCIENCE is one of the Colleges of the University of London.

The object of the School is to provide for all classes and de-
nominations, without any distinction whatsoever, opportunities and
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The lectures and classes of the School are arranged so that
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STUDIES IN
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A Series of Monographs by Lecturers and Students connected with
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1. The History ol Local Rates in England. The substance] of

five lectures given at the School in November and December, 1896.
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2. Select Documents Illustrating the History of Trade
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a Preface by SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B. 1896 ; 242 pp., Crown 8vor
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3. German Social Democracy. Six lectures delivered at the
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ALYS RUSSELL, B.A. 1896; 204 pp., Crown 8vo, cloth. 3s. 6d.

P. S. King & Son.

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University of Louvain. With a letter on the Referendum in Belgium
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5. The Economic Policy of Colbert. By A. J. SARGENT, M.A.,

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Apply to the Director of the London School of Economics.

8. Elements of Statistics. By ARTHUR L. BOWLEY, M.A.
F.S.S., Cobden and Adam Smith Prizeman, Cambridge; Guy Silver
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9. The Place of Compensation in Temperance Reform.

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10. A History of Factory Legislation 1802-1901, By B. L.

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11. The Pipe Role of the Exchequer of the See of
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12. Self-Government in Canada and How it was Achieved ;
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13. History of the Commercial and Financial Relations
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Bibliographies by Students connected with the London School of Economics and

Political Science.

1. A Bibliography of Unemployment and the Unemployed.

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ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.

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