SCHEDULE 1 Amendments to the 1962 Act

Part 2 Amendments to Part 9 (Questioning of elections) and Part 10 (Electoral misdemeanours)
30 After paragraph 4 (personation) insert—

“4A Offences relating to applications for postal and proxy votes at a local election
1 A person (“P”) is guilty of a corrupt practice if P—
(a) engages in an act specified in sub-paragraph (2) at a local election, and
(b) intends, by doing so, to deprive another of an opportunity to vote or to make for P or another a gain of a vote to which P or the other is not otherwise entitled or a gain of money or property.
2 These are the acts—
(a) applying for a postal or proxy vote as some other person (whether that other person is living or dead or is a fictitious person);
(b) otherwise making a false statement in, or in connection with, an application for a postal or proxy vote;
(c) inducing the registration officer or returning officer to send a postal ballot paper or any communication relating to a postal or proxy vote to an address which has not been agreed to by the person entitled to the vote;
(d) causing a communication relating to a postal or proxy vote or containing a postal ballot paper not to be delivered to the intended recipient.
3 In sub-paragraph (1)(b), property includes any description of property.
4 In sub-paragraph (2) a reference to a postal vote or a postal ballot paper includes a reference to a proxy postal vote or a proxy postal ballot paper (as the case may be).
5 For the purposes of this paragraph—“postal ballot paper” means a ballot paper issued to a postal voter;“postal voter” means a person entitled to vote by post at an election as an absent voter or as a proxy; and“proxy postal ballot paper” means a ballot paper issued to a proxy postal voter.”

.