Representation of the People Act 1948
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
Representation of the People Act, 1948,
(11 & 12 Geo. 6.) CHAPTER 65.
An Act to amend the law relating to parliamentary and local government elections and to corrupt and illegal practices, and for purposes connected therewith.
[30th July 1948]
Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Part I.
Parliamentary Franchise and its Exercise.
Parliamentary franchise and distribution of seats.
1 Constituencies and elector.
(1) Subject to any Order in Council hereafter made under the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1944 , there shall for the purpose of parliamentary elections be the county and borough constituencies, each returning a single member, which are described in the First Schedule to this Act, and no other constituencies.
(2) The persons entitled to vote as electors at a parliamentary election in any constituency shall be those resident there on the qualifying date who, on that date and on the date of the poll, are British subjects of full age and not subject to any legal incapacity to vote:
Provided that a person shall not be entitled to vote as an elector in any constituency unless registered there in the register of parliamentary electors to be used at the election nor, at a general election, to vote as an elector in more than one constituency.
(3) The qualifying date for parliamentary elections shall be determined by reference to the date fixed for the poll as follows:—
(a ) in Great Britain—
(i) where the date fixed for the poll is between the fifteenth day of March and the second day of October in any year, the qualifying date shall be in England and Wales, the twentieth day of the preceding November and, in Scotland, the first day of the preceding December;
(ii) where the date fixed for the poll is between the first day of October in any year and the sixteenth day of the following March, the qualifying date shall in all parts of Great Britain be the fifteenth day of the preceding June;
(b ) in Northern Ireland (subject to the following provisions of this Act)—
(i) where the date fixed for the poll is between the first day of April and the second day of October in any year, the qualifying date shall be the thirty-first day of October in the preceding year;
(ii) where the date fixed for the poll is between the first day of October in any year and the second day of the following April, the qualifying date shall be the thirtieth day of the preceding April.
2 Residence.
(1) For the purposes of the foregoing section, any question as to a person's residence on the qualifying date for an election shall be determined in accordance with the general principles formerly applied in determining questions arising under the Representation of the People Act, 1918 , as to a person's residence on a particular day of the qualifying period, and in particular regard shall be had to the purpose and other circumstances, as well as to the fact, of his presence at or absence from the address in question.
(2) Without prejudice to the said general principles, a person's residence in a dwelling house shall not be deemed for the purposes of the foregoing section to have been interrupted—
(a ) by reason of that person's absence in the performance of any duty arising from or incidental to any office, service or employment held or undertaken by him, if he intends to resume actual residence within six months of giving it up and will not be prevented by the performance of the duty aforesaid; or
(b ) by reason of permission being given by letting or otherwise for its occupation furnished by some other person—
(i) if the permission is given in the expectation that throughout the period for which it is given the person giving it or his wife or her husband will be absent in the performance of any such duty as aforesaid; or
(ii) if the first mentioned person intends to resume actual residence within nine weeks of giving it up and will not be prevented by the permission given as aforesaid.
(3) A person who is a patient in any establishment maintained wholly or mainly for the reception and treatment of persons suffering from mental illness or mental defectiveness, or who is detained in legal custody at any place, shall not by reason thereof be treated for the purposes aforesaid as resident there.
3 Adaptation of
(1) The provisions contained in sections four to seven of, and the Third Schedule to, the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1944 , as amended by section thirty-three of the Representation of the People Act, 1945 , and by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1947 ,shall, as from the passing of this Act, be further amended as hereafter mentioned in this section, and shall accordingly have effect as set out in the Second Schedule to this Act.
(2) In section four the words ‘After the submission of their report under the last foregoing section’ at the beginning of subsection (1), and the words ‘and the number of members which they recommend should be returned by each of them’ in subsections (1) and (3) shall be omitted, and in subsection (2) for the words ‘an Act giving effect (whether with or without modifications) to the recommendations contained in the reports submitted by the Commissions under the last foregoing section’ there shall be substituted the words ‘the Representation of the People Act, 1948’.
(3) In subsection (1) of section five, for the words ‘a parliamentary county or division of a parliamentary county or a parliamentary borough or division of a parliamentary borough’ there shall be substituted the words ‘a county constituency or a borough constituency’.
(4) Section six (which excepts university constituencies from the scope of the Act) shall be omitted, and for section seven there shall be substituted the following section:—
(7)‘7. In this Act the expression 'constituency' means an area having separate representation in the House of Commons.’
(5) In the Third Schedule—
(a ) in rule 1, in the table showing the number of constituencies, for the words ‘591’ there shall be substituted the words ‘613’;
(b ) there shall be omitted—
(i) paragraph (1) of rule 2, paragraph (2) of rule 5A, and the whole of rule 3 (which relate to two-member constituencies) and in paragraph (2) of the said rule 2 the word ‘other’;
(iii) rule 7 (which provides for the continuance as a separate constituency of the City of London);
(c ) in lieu of the said rule 7 there shall be inserted immediately before rule 5 the following rule:—
‘4A. There shall continue to be a constituency which shall include the whole of the City of London and the name of which shall refer to the City of London’.
Registration of parliamentary electors.
4 Registration officers and areas.
(1) For the registration of electors there shall be electoral registration officers (in this Act referred to as ‘registration officers’).
(2) In England and Wales, there shall be a registration officer for each constituency, and that officer shall be—
(a ) in the case of a county constituency which is coterminous with or wholly contained in one county, or of a borough constituency which is coterminous with or wholly contained in a borough or urban district, the clerk of the authority for that county or that borough or district;
(b ) in any other case, the clerk of the authority for such county or such borough or urban district as the Secretary of State may by order direct;
and any two or more constituencies having the same registration officer shall together form a registration area, which shall be known by the name of the area of the authority whose clerk is registration officer.
(3) In Scotland, the assessor of any county or large burgh shall be the registration officer for any constituency or part of a constituency which is situated within that county or large burgh, and where there is more than one assessor of a county or large burgh such one of them as may be appointed by the county or town council for the purposes of this Act shall be the registration officer and all other assessors thereof shall for the said purposes be subject to and shall act on his instructions.
(4) In Northern Ireland, the county borough of Belfast and each county shall be a registration area, and the town clerk of Belfast or the secretary to the county council, as the case may be, shall be the registration officer for any constituency or part of a constituency in that area; and for the purposes of this subsection the county borough of Londonderry shall be deemed to be included in the county of Londonderry.
5 Registers of electors.
(1) It shall be the duty of every registration officer to prepare and publish in each year, for each constituency or part of a constituency in the area for which he acts, the following registers of parliamentary electors:—
(a ) a spring register which, except in Northern Ireland, shall be...
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