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SCHEDULE 1U.K.Amendments to the 1962 Act

Part 2U.K.Amendments to Part 9 (Questioning of elections) and Part 10 (Electoral misdemeanours)

30.  After paragraph 4 (personation) insert—U.K.

Offences relating to applications for postal and proxy votes at a local election

4A.(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..