Election Petition - Cases

Cases

In 1961, Tony Benn was disqualified from taking up his seat after a by-election by an election court because he held a peerage.

In 1982, Seamus Mallon was disqualified from taking his seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly as he was a member of Seanad Éireann, the upper chamber of the parliament of the Republic of Ireland, at the time of his election.

A recent example of an election being held void was when the 1997 election of Member of Parliament for Winchester, Mark Oaten, (Liberal Democrat) was contested by the Conservative Party candidate Gerry Malone. Oaten had won the seat by two votes, with 55 ballot papers had been rejected by the returning officer because they had not been stamped properly. Malone lodged an election petition in the High Court to contest the outcome. The petition was dealt with by special case in which Oaten joined. On 6 October 1997 Lord Justice Brooke ruled that the election was void: by a 1974 precedent the failure to stamp the ballots may have been the result of polling station staff forgetting, and had they been counted, Malone would have had a majority of two over Oaten.

Two election petitions were lodged after the General Election on 6 May 2010. The defeated Independent Rodney Connor, who lost in Fermanagh and South Tyrone by four votes has lodged a petition seeking a recount with scrutiny, and the case began on 13 September 2010.

In the Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency, the defeated Liberal Democrat candidate Elwyn Watkins petitioned against the election of Phil Woolas, a former Labour Minister, alleging that the result was affected by false statements of fact about his personal character. The Election Court which heard the case ordered a re-run of the election in Woolas' constituency after finding him guilty of making false statements against his opponent during the original campaign. Phil Woolas sought a judicial review of the decision in the High Court, but was unsuccessful overall as that Court upheld the decision of the Election Court in relation to two statements, whilst quashing the decision in relation to a third.

A petition has also been lodged against the result in the Waddon ward in the London Borough of Croydon at the local elections held on 6 May 2010. The petition concerns allegations that not all voters who wished to vote on election day were allowed to vote.