Englands Electoral System - Research Paper Example

 ROLE OF THE RETURNING OFFICER I. England’s Electoral System According to Parliamentary¶ Elections Rules Schedule 1 of the Representation of People Act of 1983 ¥, The United Kingdom1 elections use the secret ballot arrangements. You can trace the voter’s identification by looking the ballot paper thru use of numbers. This is security and audit trail procedure so that in when on party files fraud2 charges, these numbers can help much in resolving the situation. · The Representation of People Act of 1983 is only one of the many laws that affects the election process in England. Another site that was used in coming up with this situational analysis are Parliamentary Election Rules. Still another research material used is Political Parties, Election and Referendum Act 2000. The other research tool used is the Department for Constitutional Affairs website. This is included in the reference list below. The book of N Parpworth with the title of Constitutional and Administrative Law was also looked into. Professional Conduct for Solicitors Handbook was referenced for additional emphasis on the election law of England. Griffith and Ryle on Parliament: Functions, practice and procedure by R Blackburn was also additionally looked into. These reference materials were very instrumental in the coming up of our conclusion which we have generated. The materials are used as strong back up defense as the official election rules will be followed. The search engines had been used to gather additional data regarding cases that have been resolved or are still pending in courts in relation to the election and campaign activity in England. The Ballot Act of 1872 specifically required that the British General Elections for the Parliament MUST use secret ballots in electing their government representatives. ¨ The secret ballot is keeps in general the privacy of who the English voters turned out and chose during their hotly contested elections. Although its internal control process of auditing dictates thru the Ballot Act of 1872, we can resolve election protest cases better with the election procedure of placing numbers on the ballot returns. Returning Officer Functions The Returning officer main functions in England’s electoral process of (a) Lodging of nominations (b) Reissue of ballot materials (c) In - person deposit of completed ballot material and lastly, (d) Conducting preliminary scrutiny and count to first preference.© The returning officer is the official in England’s election campaign who holds the election and RETURN the results in the district under his responsibility. ª The returning officer and his deputies, appointed by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, acts as the electoral body who conducts the elections. He also keeps the election records of political parties under his care. This is his main function as stated in the Law on Political Parties.* Election for the European Parliament is handled by the Federal Return Officer. During the election period, the returning officer they must allow the public inspection ,if request, of a confirmed candidate's nomination papers. After the election, they should also permit public inspection, on request, of candidates' election expenses reports for the six months after becoming available. Returning officers should, in addition, be free to participate in a various activities between electoral events. They take courses on establishing polling division boundaries within their electoral districts and on other new laws or procedures. They must participate in special projects as required by the Chief Electoral Officer, such as making polling stations easily accessible to electors.' III. Recounts And Tie Situation Any candidate may request for a recount when the election results are close. The recount can be repeated many times, if needed, until the candidates are satisfied with the result. The returning officer will, in the end, The returning officer will approve, if he feels based on each electoral protest situation statistics, another recount.¡ This is one of the many unique features of the English election law. The recount , of course, will cost the candidate much precious money for the expenses for persons to be paid and the deposits that the requesting candidate will put up. So if you are a candidate with just enough funds for the election, a recount or a case filed for any election fraud is costly. You will advice that, in case your candidate leads by one or more votes again, to request the returning officer to stop with finality next recount request. One reason is that the recount expenses are too much. Your wining by another one or more vote again is evidence enough that the people have spoken and it is now time to shake hands with the rival candidates and your winning candidate to start elected position he won. The losing candidate’ or candidates’ recount request is unreasonable this time and the returning officer will be requested to stop another recount. Another evidence according to Dept of Constitutional Affairs “ 12.11 Candidates and their election agents have a statutory right to require the acting returning officer to recount the votes or recount them again without having to give a reason for their request. The acting returning officer, however, may refuse to do so if he considers their requests to be unreasonable. In practice, such requests are usually made and granted if the candidate and the acting returning officer consider that there may have been an error in counting or if the winning margin on the first count is very narrow” a In our situation, there is an ongoing third counting. The prediction is that there will be another tie. All parties, specifically the competing candidates, can ask for another recount. The returning officer can now stop or not the next recount. If there is a tie, definitely, there should be a recount until both parties as satisfied. If all parties, after several recounts, confirm that there is indeed a tie, then there should be a tie breaking election process implemented as soon as possible. The advice is to stop a recount in case of tie and break the tie thru decision by lot. The electoral position contested here is given for one position to be filled up. Therefore, there can not be two persons sitting on one electoral chair. The tie has to be broken by another method. If, the situation warrants that there enough vacancies the tying candidates to be proclaimed winners and both can start their elected mandate to serve their constituencies, then the returning officer must, not later than ll:00 on election day, declare the tying candidates as election winners. But since there is no mention in this situational study of this possible scenario then there must be put in place a tie breaking procedure. The returning officer’s major role should be to implement the tie breaking procedure of decision by lot immediately. 3In a related case “ [1] Statutory provision stating that an election tie "shall be decided by lot" is a mandatory rather than optional mechanism for breaking the tie. A.S.C.A. § 6.0901. [2] Statutory provision requiring election ties to be decided by lot does not invalidate any votes of the qualified electors, nor does it taint the requirement that representatives be elected by secret ballot, since the lot comes into play as a result of the balloting process. A.S.C.A. § 6.0901. The lot provision, A.S.C.A. § 6.0901, is merely a procedural mechanism devised to supplement the election process in case of the unlikely event of a tie result at the ballot boxes. The use of this procedure does not invalidate any votes of the qualified electors, nor does it taint the requirement that they be elected by secret ballot, since the lot comes into play as a result of the balloting process. [3] We hold that A.S.C.A. § 6.0901 is not inconsistent with the provisions of the Revised Constitution of American Samoa and, therefore, deny the petitions for a new election. The matter is accordingly remanded to the Chief Election Officer for resolution of the tie election result in District #3 in accordance with A.S.C.A. § 6.0901” ( http://www.asbar.org/Cases/27ASR2d/27ASR2d28.htm [LAVEA SEALIITU F. MAUGA, Plaintiff v. CHIEF ELECTION OFFICER and ELISARA T. TOGIA`I, Defendants]). The decision was “2]) The above case strengthens our basis that there is, indeed, a voting tie break procedure of deciding by lot. The deciding by lot is the prerogative of the returning officer. III. Conclusion: It appears that there was a prior first recount that could be because either one or both or even all of the parties with vested interests in the election filed a request for the first recount. This recount resulted in a draw. But the second recount requested again by either one some of the parties. The recount can be done as long as the person affected by the transfer will have to to formally file a request with the return officer that there will be another round of recount. The second recount resulted in a candidate with one vote advantage. Based on the situation above, one party again requested for a recount. The third recount is again valid in accordance with England’s election laws. We can have as many recounts if any of the affected parties requests for such recount until the requesting party or parties are satisfied with the result. In this scenario the third count will probably end in a tie, we have to come up with a contingency plan. There will probably be a another request to have a recount if one person or candidate will be declared the winer and the others will lose. The recount acts would cost the candidates too much money for relation recount expenses. Recounting is also costly to the government. But if both or all the candidates have tied vote scores, the election officer in charge, we call him, revenue officer will now study the situation. Your recommendation, if your candidate wins again by another one vote or even more, then this, in auditing, is the confirmation that your candidate did win. So if the other parties will file for a fourth recount, your stand is to ask the returning officer to stop the recount because, it is very obvious, that your electoral candidate won fairly in the election at hand. If there will be another tie, what will we do? In case of a tie, the returning officer should, as soon as possible, break the tie thru decision by lot. There should a stop to another recount. Since only one person can sit in one hotly contested election position, There should be a tie breaking electoral procedure implemented. If the situation warrants that the contesting parties that tied in the election could be all proclaimed as tying winners, then the returning officer should apply the law and proclaim, by 11:00 on election day, all the tying candidates as winners.b · Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot) ¨Ballot Act no. 1872 (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Act_1872) © Local government elections May 2000 ( http://www.lga.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Local_Government_Election_Report_May_2000.pdf ªe look.org (http://www.elook.org/dictionary/returning-officer.html) * The Returning Officer(http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/e/leiter_e.html) ' Elections Canasa (http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=gen&document=ec90535&dir=bkg&lang=e&textonly=false) ¡ BBC news 2005 elections (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4346975.stm) a Dept of Constitutional Affairs “Procedures at General Elections” (http://www.dca.gov.uk/elections/ge2001/procedures/02.htm) b http://www.asbar.org/Cases/27ASR2d/27ASR2d28.htm www.dca.gov.uk/civil/procrules_fin/ contents/schedule2/ccrorder45.htm www.parliament.uk/ www.wordreference.com/definition/election%20fraud Read More