Declaring an Election Void
There are two main reasons why the election of a candidate may be declared void.
- the administration of an election may have been so defective as to cast real doubt on the validity of the results
- a candidate may be unseated for cheating (for example, by exceeding the maximum permitted expenditure)
One of the most recent British examples of seriously defective electoral administration dates back to 1874. In the Hackney Election Petition Case, defective administrative arrangements meant that two polling stations never opened, and other stations were closed during various times of the day, so that a high proportion of the potential voters were disenfranchised.91
The Law 'On Elections of People's Deputies of Ukraine' includes a provision in article 47 for a similar eventuality:
The Central Election Commission may declare elections ... as void if during the course of their conduct or tabulation of votes there were violations of this Law, which have substantially influenced the results of the voting ... Decisions of the Central Election Commission can be appealed to the Supreme Court of Ukraine, whose decision is final.92
The central example regarding forfeiture of a parliamentary seat by a successful candidate subsequently found guilty of a campaign offence, is the British law relating to permitted spending by candidates and their agents. The fact that this law has never since the 1920s led to the forfeiture of a seat in the House of Commons may be interpreted in different ways - either as a sign of the deterrent effect of the law, or as an indication of poor enforcement. There is probably some validity in both these interpretations.
Forfeiting Civic Rights
Someone who has committed a serious breach of electoral law arguably cannot be trusted to carry out his civic duties in the future, and is unworthy of the opportunity to present himself to the electors as a candidate for public office. On grounds such as these, electoral law in Britain imposes special civic penalties:
Any person reported by an election court as personally guilty of a corrupt practice is subject to the following incapacities:-
(1) Incapacity for five years of being registered as an elector or voting at any parliamentary or local government election in the United Kingdom.
(2) Incapacity for five years of being elected to or sitting in the House of Commons or (3) of holding public or judicial office.
A candidate reported by an election court as personally guilty of a corrupt practice is in addition
(4) banned from being elected for ten years to the constituency for which the election was held. However,
(5) if the offence was committed by the candidate's agent the same ban on the candidate lasts only for seven years.
Justices of the peace, members of certain professions (such as lawyers, clergymen, and doctors) and persons holding liquor licences are subject to other actions, if convicted of corrupt practices regarding elections.
Smaller civic penalties apply to convictions for the lesser category of offences described as 'illegal' practices. 93
Prior to 1996, Japanese candidates appointed an agent to run the campaign to take the hit, and even go to jail for campaign law violations. The 1996 version of the law makes the candidate responsible. There is a loophole or a shortcoming in the law, in that it prohibits a convicted candidate from running for five years in the district in which he was elected. It does not prohibit him from running in another district, or in a different election, e.g. for prefecture governor rather than Diet (parliament) member.
Draft Only
