ELECTION. 
fae have been admitted to his freedom 
twelve calendar months before 3 Geo. III. 
c. 15. All undue influence whatever upon 
the electors is illegal, and strongly prohi- 
bited. As soon as the time and place of 
election within counties or boroughs aie 
tixed, all soldiers quartered in the place are 
to remove, at least one day before the elec- 
tion, to the distance of two miles or more, 
and not to return till one day after the poll 
be ended ; except in the liberty of West- 
minster, or other residence of the royal fa- 
mily, in respect of his Majesty’s guards, 
and in fortified places. 8 Geo. II. c. 30. 
By the 7th and 8th Wil. c. 4, to prevent 
bribery and corruption, no candidate, after 
teste of the writ of summons, or after a 
place becomes vacant in parliament time, 
shall, by himself, or by any other ways or 
means on his behalf, or at his charge, before 
bis election, directly or indirectly give, or 
promise to give, to any elector any money, 
meat, drink, provision, present, reward, or 
entertainment, to or for any such elector in 
particular, or to any county, city, town, 
borough, port, or place in general, in order 
to his being elected, on pain of being inca- 
pacitated, To guard still more against gross 
and flagrant acts of bribery, it is enacted by 
2 Geo. II. c. 24, explained and enlarged 
by 9 Geo. 11. c. 38, and 16 Geo. III. c. 11, 
that if any money, gift, office, employ- 
ment, of reward, be given, or promised to 
be given, to any voter at any time in order 
to influence him to give or withhold his vote, 
as well he that takes, as he that offers such 
a bribe, forfeits 5001. and is for ever 
disabled from voting and holding any office 
in any corporation, unless, before convic- 
tion, he will discover some other offender 
of the same kind, and then he is indemni- 
fied tor his own offence. 
If the election shall not be determined 
upon view, with consent of the fi eeholders 
there present, but a poll shall be demand- 
ed, the same shall commence on the day on 
which such demand is made, or on the next 
day at farthest (if it be not Sunday, and 
then on the day after) and shall be pro- 
ceeded in from day to day (Sundays ex- 
cepted) until finished, and shall not conti- 
nue more than fifteen days (Sundays ex- 
cepted) ; and the poll shall be kept open 
seven hours at least each day, between 
eight in the morning and eight in the even- 
ing, 25 Geo. III. c. 84. The sheriff shall 
allow a cheque-book for every poll-book 
for each candidate, to be kept by their in- 
spectors at the place of taking the poll, 
19 Geo. II. c. 28. By the 34 Geo. Ill, 
c. 73, in order to expedite the business at 
elections, the returning officers are enabled, 
on request of the candidates, to appoint 
persons to administer to voters the oaths of 
allegiance, supremacy, the declaration of 
fidelity, the oath of abjuration, and the de- 
claration or affirmation of the effect there- 
of, previously to their coming to vote ; 
and to grant the voters certificates of 
their having taken the said oath ; without 
which certificate they shall not be per- 
mitted to vote if they are required to take 
the oaths. 
Every freeholder, before he shall be ad- 
mitted to poll for a knight of the shire, 
shall, if required by a candidate or any 
elector, make oath of his qualification to 
vote j in which case the sheriff and clerks 
shall enter the place of his freehold, and 
the place of his abode, as he shall disclose 
the same at the time of giving his vote ; and 
.shall enter jurat against the name of every 
such voter who shall have taken the oath, 
10 Anne c. 23. s. 5. After the election, the 
names of the persons chosen shall be written 
in an indenture, under the seals of the 
electors, and tacked to the writ. 
The election being closed, the returning 
officer in boroughs, returns his precept to 
the sheriff, with the persons elected by the 
majority. And the sheriff returns the 
whole, together wi th the writ for the coun- 
ty, and the names of the knights elected 
thereupon, to the clerk of the crown in 
Chancery, before the day of meeting, if it 
be a new parliament ; or within fourteen 
days after the election, if it be an occasional 
vacancy ; and this under the penalty of 
5001. If the sheriff do not return such 
knights only as are duly elected, he forfeits 
by stat. Henry VI. 1001. and tlie returning 
officer of a borough for a like false return 
401. and by the late statutes they are liable 
to an action at the suit of the party duly 
elected, and to pay double damages, and 
the like remedy shall be against an officer 
making a double return. If two or more 
sets of electors make each a return of a dif. 
ferent member (which is called a double 
election) that return only, which is signed 
and sealed by the returning officer to 
whom the sheriff’s precept was directed, is 
good ; and the members by him returned 
shall sit, until displaced on petition. On 
petition to the House of Commons, com- 
plaining of an undue election, forty-nine 
members shall be chosen by ballot, out of 
whom each party shall alternately strike 
