Labour’s eve-of-poll election leaflet in Kentish Town looks like it could land them in legal hot water for breaking election law.
The law makes it an illegal offence to issue immitation poll cards – the idea is to make sure that official looking instructions on where and how to cast your vote must only come from the Returning Officer to protect voters against dirty tricks.
It’s a long-standing law and I can’t recall any party ever getting close to breaching it. All parties issue instructions to their supoprters about where to vote etc – but they never try to pass them off as polling cards … except now enter, stage left, Camden Labour party.
On the day before polling, they distributed letters in envelopes marked on the outside simple “Urgent: poll card inside”. The letters said, “The polling card sent with this letter …” and the package did indeed also contain an insert that contained polling card information like where and when to vote, but with the instruction to put your cross against the Labour candidate’s name as the only way of voting.
This looks like a pretty open and shut case of a breach of the law which says it is illegal to issue any poll card or a document closely resembling one. Doubtless Labour will argue that people were not fooled by their own poll card – but if the law says you can’t produce one, then you can’t – you can’t just pick and choose which election rules to follow and which to ignore. Rather ironic for the party that claims to be tough on crime…
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38 Comments
Do we have a result?
[jaw hits the floor] I’m amazed they even discussed doing this!
We’ve won the seat
For certain? Yay!
Recount for second place between the Greens and Labour
What is the full result
Congratulations Camden Lib Dems! I’m delighted for you.
Shame on Labour for this. I hope they get done for this. If they don’t then they will push it even further next time somewhere else.
How large was the margin? Anything other than a win would have been disappointing for the Libdems (considering they got 1 and 2 place last May and they’ve worked, at least, as hard has the other 2 parties this time)
The result Andrea, is a sensation. Labour lose the seat and the Green’s fail to take it on a solid base from May with their most credible national spokesperson as a the candidate.
LiberalFirst… you got first and second place last May. I would have been quite surprised to see Labour holding the seat. Actually if the Libdems had lost to Labour, it would have been pretty bad for them (losing against the Greens would have been another matter)
The result should be a majority of something like 10% for the Libdems.
CNJ should give us better coverage…..
http://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/120706/news120706_13.html
Ah, the Libdems held confortably a byelection in Horsham (versus the tories)
A typically ‘liberal’ approach to the facts here. What s. 94 of the RPA 1983 actually says is that you can’t issue something that imitates an official poll card, not that you can’t issue a poll card. Given that this one made itself quite clear that it was a party publication, there is no legal problem whatsoever.
Full results
LD 1093
Grn 812
Lab 808
Con 198
If the photographs depicted above are accurate, David Boothroyd, the message on the envelope is quite clear – that inside is to be found the POLLING CARD.
You may be able to distinguish between an official polling card and this Labour propaganda. But I very much doubt if ALL the electorate is as discerning as yourself. And if they are told that the envolope contains a “polling card”, then a polling card is what it is.
The Labour Party has defined it as such. Watch out – if they are not stopped now, they will use it against you Tories next.
No good, David. You have to quote the statute, otherwise we are not going to have a clue what the crime actually is. What is the actus reus? What EXACTLY does the statute say? And what is the mens rea? Is it a crime of specific intent or basic intent? Can it be committed recklessly (without the need to prove intention)? Always suspicious of people who pontificate about the law, because they frequently don’t know what they are talking about. What I see with my own eyes is an envelope blank but for the words (in grey letters) “URGENT: POLL CARD INSIDE”.
Now, bear in mind that the Tower Hamlets case was brought by means of an Election Petition. There it was necessary to prove that the impugned leaflet influenced the election. For a criminal prosecution to succeed under s 94, it may be sufficient to prove that the agent committed a prohibited act with the requisite mens rea. Rather like perjury. You don’t have to prove that anyone believed it. (Rather a bad analogy, because it may be necessary to prove that the defendent intended the recipient to believe it was an official poll card – or was reckless, not that anyone actually did believe it was.)
David Boothroyd seems to be spreading his bitterness over the whole Web. He is wrong of course: what Labour’s done here is no more legal than in all the places where they’ve “issued” their own postal votes by the hundred.
Congratulations to Camden Lib Dems for a good result in an unusual 3-way marginal.
It looks like this wasn’t Labour’s only dirty trick – they also tried to rig an online poll:
http://www.labourhome.org/story/2006/9/19/192415/224
You young Lib Dem idiots are clearly unaware that it was standard practice until not very long ago for political parties to issue their own poll cards, especially for local elections. I have some that were issued in Westminster local elections. Have a look at http://www.election.demon.co.uk/wcc/warwick71.gif for a Conservative Party example. This is not illegal, it’s just illegal to pretend to be the official poll card.
Bloody youngsters coming over here, stealing our politics. Shouldn’t be allowed I tell you, shouldn’t be allowed.
I think David Boothroyd is probably right. The 1995 Representation of the People Act uses the phrase “so closely resembling an official poll card as to be calculated to deceive” It is S.94 of the 1995 RPA.
http://www.dca.gov.uk/legist/keeling/part2.pdf
94 Imitation poll cards
No person shall for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of any candidate at a parliamentary election [or a local government election to which this section applies] issue any poll card or document so closely resembling an official poll card as to be calculated to deceive, and subsections (2) and (3) of section 92 above apply as if an offence under this section were an offence under that section.
The leaflet you have linked to doesn’t say that it is a poll card though – was it distributed in an envelope saying the person’s poll card was enclosed and with a covering letter calling it their poll card?
Mark, can you scan in the actual poll card for us to see?
Looking at the image at the top of this page the envelope says “URGENT:POLL CARD INSIDE” and you can just make out some of the wording on the letter “The polling card sent with this letter shows you where to go to vote”. I would need to see an image of an actual card to form a view on whether it ‘closely resembled an official poll card’. Even if it did it would be difficult to prove that it was “calculated to deceive”.
Can I just point ore the phrase “illegal offence” that you cant have legal offences so the word illegal is a bit redundant!
I suspect what was meant was ‘illegal practice’. Election offences are divided into ‘illegal practices’ and ‘corrupt practices’ (the latter being worse).
Does the envelope have an imprint?
No. The it was a self-seal window envelope with just the printing of URGENT: POLL CARD INSIDE on it.
I’m with Mark on this a bit – the card linked to be David is missing a lot of the bits needed to be a poll card – it doesn’t say it is a polling card, no address or poll number, clearly only refers to the Conservative candidates. Hard to see it could be regarded as a poll card
My advise on doing anything that could be considered a poll card was to (a) put the party logo on and (b) somewhere on it – in a reasonable font size – put the words “this is not an official poll card. You could also make a case that a “new” style imprint with the party name makes it clear it is from a political party not the returning officer.
The bit I think is borderline is the printing on the outside of the envelope. That said taking the mailing as a whole it is clearly a political leaflet. Whether that would make it inside/outside the law I’m not sure but I wouldn’t have advised someone to do that in my ALDC days.
Our interpretation of what we put on leaflets as experienced political hacks and how the courts look at it is not always the same. R v Rowe ex p Mainwaring makes interesting reading on this front as regards the point size of imprints for example 🙂
> it was standard practice until not very long ago …
Perhaps until enactment of RPA 1983 or whenever it was? I note that the quaint historical example you provide wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Heartbeat, even allowing for the frequently archaic typography of Tory electoral literature.
BTW congrats to the Camden campaign team. As Andrea notes, the 10% majority is bang on target and provides a platform for squeezing both greens and cons in any future parliamentary campaign.
Before 1983 it was section 81 of the Representation of the People Act 1949. That was the law when this poll card was issued:
http://www.election.demon.co.uk/wcc/labourpollcard.png
> Before 1983 it was section 81 of the Representation of the People Act 1949. That was the law when this poll card was issued
Thanks David. Also very quaint and an excellent prop for use in a future episode of Life on Mars. However the current debate relates to whether it is legal in 2006 to issue lookalike polling cards. Both the examples you have so far produced are so antiquated they don’t even reach the last quarter of the previous century, and my original question was specifically whether these museum pieces have any relevance to the legality of this kind of tactic in the current day and age. A question that I note you have deliberately chosen to sidestep with the unmistakeable gait of a troll.
AFAIK (and I ain’t going to spend the time checking!) the wording of the section in the 1949 Act was the same as the 83 act.
Of course just because someone did something in 1973 doesn’t mean it was legal – my understanding of the Richmond case is that it ruled several practices that were common practice across the parties as not being legal.
If someone could post a scan of the relevant card we might be a bit better informed but frankly I doubt the CPS are going to be that excited about it.
I think the important point to remember here is that electoral law is only ever changed by losers.
Sorry David, all parties have skated on ice on this. But Labour have clearly finally picked a thin bit and cracked it.
Some points here from a “young ” Liberal Democrat:
(1) Under the 1949 RPA Act it was illegal to issue a poll card at parliamentary elections, where the RO was under a duty to do so. At local elections the RO did not do so and parties often did. (I have many examples in my files published by me).
(2) This was changed at some point – I think before 1983 and possibly in the 1972 Local Government Act but I am not sure. ROs at local elections (except – in England – parish council elections) were given a duty to issue poll cards and it became illegal for candidates to do so.
(I think you can still issue them for parish council elections?)
(3) The real point of a poll card is that they contain the NAME and ELECTORAL NUMBER of each elector. We used to spend hours writing them out. In my view (IANAL) the presence or absence of such information is crucial to whether the law has been broken.
Tony Greaves
Thanks Tony – the poll card’ as they describe it has the words:
Below are listed your poll number and where you vote
It’s pretty expolict at suggesting it is the official card…
What’s expolict? How about a scan of the poll card, Ed?