§ MR. BUTT moved for leave to bring in a Bill to amend and declare the Law relating to Votes given for a disqualified Candidate at Parliamentary Elections. The hon. and learned Member said that it was a perfectly well established principle of law, that if the party voted for a person 538 who was disqualified, with a full knowledge of such disqualification, his vote was forfeited. But the decisions of Committees of that House, in respect to votes for disqualified candidates, were contradictory. Some of them went the length of holding that the mere service of notice on the elector of the candidate's disqualification forfeited his vote for that candidate if disqualification was afterwards established. In some cases the question of disqualification turned upon a nice question of law; so that it was going a great length to say that the mere putting of a paper in an elector's hand, and stating that the person for whom he was going to vote was disqualified, forfeited his vote, in case the Committee of the House afterwards decided that the candidate was disqualified. In 1835, in the case of Mr. Feargus O'Connor, who had been returned by a majority of votes for the county of Cork, a Committee decided that a lease of lives renewable for ever was not a qualification which entitled a man to sit in Parliament for a county. Notice of Mr. O'Connor's disqualification had been served on the electors; but it was almost universally believed in Ireland that a lease of lives renewable for ever was a qualification. Nevertheless, the votes of the electors who had voted for Mr. O'Connor were declared forfeited, and Mr. Longfield, a relative of the hon. and learned Member for Mallow, was declared by the Committee to have been duly elected, though it was notorious that the great majority of the electors were opposed to him. In like manner, Mr. C. O'Dwyer had been unseated as Member for Drogheda, and his opponent, who had not got one-third of the number of votes recorded for him, declared duly elected, though the latter was the last man in Ireland whom the great body of the electors would have returned. The voters in such cases could not be expected to know that the candidates were disqualified, for there was no reason why they should take for granted the mere statements of the opposite parties upon the subject. The state of the law was such, that if Committees were to follow some of the precedents, it would be possible that, without the slightest fault on the part of the electors, a person might obtain a seat in that House whose political principles were disliked by nine-tenths of the constituency he would be supposed to represent. The question then arose how was that evil to be remedied? It had been proposed they should declare that no 539 one could be duly elected a Member of the House for whom a minority only of the electors had voted. But he was not prepared to go quite that length. A person might give his vote for a foreigner, or for a man convicted of high treason, or any individual who was manifestly disqualified by law from sitting in that House; and it was only fair that he should pay the penalty of such perversity of conduct. All that it was necessary to provide in such cases was that votes should, not be thrown away which had been given with an intention of making a fair and reasonable use of the franchise. The measure which he then proposed to introduce would contain three provisions. It would declare that in no instance should a vote be deemed null in consequence of its having been given to a disqualified candidate, unless the Committee which inquired into the case should be convinced that it had boon given perversely, and with a knowledge that it had been given to a person legally incapacitated from sitting in that House. The Bill would further provide that the vote should not be annulled, unless a notice of the disqualification of the candidate had been given before the candidate had been put in nomination; and it would further contain a provision to the effect that a vote should be held valid in case of a candidate being unseated for corrupt practices, unless the corruption had been proved previously to the election, and before a legally constituted tribunal. With that explanation he would beg for leave to introduce the Bill.
§ MR. M'MAHONseconded the Motion. Leave given.
Bill to declare and amend the Law relating to Votes given for a disqualified Candidate at Parliamentary Elections, ordered to be brought in by Mr. BUTT, Mr. MELLOR, and Mr. M'MAHON.
§ Bill presented and read 1°.