THE STEPNEY PETITION.
THE Stepney Election Petition bids fair to last as long as the celebrated Westminster Election Petition of one hundred years ago, when Pitt managed to prevent Fox taking his seat for the borough for which he had been elected for the best part of a year. It is to be hoped that, as that election resulted in a reform of the system of elections then prevailing by the curtailment of the poll to a fortnight, so the present petition may result in a different though equally necessary reform of the present system. It is eminently unsatisfactory that, after one hundred years of reforms of procedure in elections, such pro- ceedings as those not yet concluded in the Stepney petition should have monopolised the time of two Judges of the High Court of Justice, largely increasing the block of business already existing. Three points in election law have been conclusively demonstrated by the present petition, all of them unsatisfactory, —first, that the ballot is not really secret, since its results are liable to be impeached, and voters to be obliged in open Court to say how they voted ; secondly, that the register is not con- clusive, so that people who are on the register are liable to have their votes rejected; and thirdly, that the appearance of the Public Prosecutor in the proceedings is almost a farce, and has lit!le or no terror for evil-doers. Happily, the net result of the petition is not, so far, satisfactory to the petitioner, or an encouragement to others to follow in his steps. After a trial spread over a fortnight, to be left in a minority of one, subject to the discussion of legal points which have not arisen since the days of James I., and subject to questions of fact as to the way in which votes were given by persons whose fellow-burgesses have shown that they so far relied upon the protection of the ballot as to deceive entirely every one concerned as to how they voted or intended to vote, is certainly not an encouragement to the speculative petitioner. But it is greatly to be feared that the unsophisticated voter, seeing that he is, at least in some cases, compelled to declare openly how he has voted, may be induced to think that, after all, the ballot is not secret, and that the protection of the voting-paper is liable to be found a broken reed. Already the fact that there is a number on the voting-paper has been extensively used by the unscrupulous to frighten the voter into believing that his vote can be ascer- tained, and will be ascertained, by those whose sinister interest it may be to punish him if he votes wrong. And now it is shown that the allegation is true, that the number on the paper is a guide to the vote, and is intended to be a guide to the vote, and that the voter may be called upon to declare on oath whether a vote is his, or how he voted. It is idle, in face of these patent facts, to argue that it is only in case of a scrutiny, and when the vote has been attacked as legally bad, that the secrets of the ballot can be disclosed. The unlegal voter sees no reason—and, indeed, there is no reason—why the particular election in which he took part should not be the subject of a scrutiny, or why his individual vote should not be legally attacked. That which is done once may be done universally. The faith in the ballot is destroyed, and the voter feels himself once more at the mercy of his superiors. This mischief ought to be remedied without delay. Little as we admire the ballot, still, if the principle of the ballot is to be adopted at all, it ought to be a reality and not a sham. It is possible that means could be found for making the ballot a real ballot. Now that, with a few exceptions which could easily be removed, the constituencies are single-Member constituencies, there would be no great difficulty in making the voting consist in simply putting a ball into a box. It is true that the form of ballot-box in ordinary use in club elections would not do, as it is perfectly easy for an onlooker to see which way the vote is given, and it would be quite easy for the voter, without detection, to remove the balls from one side of the box to
the other. But it would be quite easy to devise means by which the ball could be placed in one compartment or the other, and without means of getting it out again, and for the voter to stand in a closed compartment while putting in his ball. The boxes might be coloured yellow and blue, so that the illiterate voter would have no diffi- culty in voting as he intended. There would be no spoilt ballot-papers, no elaborate arguments as to whether an aught or a line was a cross, or a cross at the top was intended for the name at the bottom, or the divers other sophistries which are gainful to lawyers, but to no one else. There would then
be no possibility of tracing a vote. When the voter was
admitted to the polling-compartment, his ballot would find its billet, and no one but the voter could say what the billet was. An election petition would still be possible, but only for bribery and corruption or illegal practices, including persona- tion, and especially that form of it which consists in voting in the name of a dead man. A voter who had been shown to be corrupted, or to have received or made an illegal payment, might still be asked how he voted; and it would be no hardship that any one who had been convicted of selling himself for filthy lucre should be obliged to say how
he voted. Still, it would be better not even in that case to infringe the secrecy of the ballot, but as there would be no trust in his.oath, the vote might be reckoned as given for the corrupter, and struck off accordingly.
The protection of the public against false and fraudulent votes should be found not in the Election, but in the Registra- tion Court. The State spends some £25,000 a year in
registration barristers, and yet we find at Stepney nearly two hundred possible aliens on the register ; we find persons
voting in the names of the dead ; and we find voters able
"innocently" to vote in more divisions than one of the same borough. The Registration Acts want a thorough reform. The
time required for residence is far too long. It is now prac- tically two years, though it was only intended to be one year. We confess that we should not like to see the period reduced, as proposed by Sir Julian Goldsmid, to one month, or to three months. If the period was so short, it would be perfectly easy for a rich manufacturer or dock- owner to swamp a constituency by the introduction of an army of workmen for the period required, and the Government of the day could swamp a garrison town or a dockyard by the introduction, or artificially reduce the vote on the Opposition side by the removal of a regiment. A year gives time for a man to become acquainted with the locality and his neighbours, and while numbers represent localities, local acquaintance may fairly be considered.
But this is not the only or the chief reform required. The overseers who make out the lists should be paid for their work, and be rendered liable to heavy fines for neglecting or wrongfully performing it. It should be their duty to put all those entitled to a vote on the list,
lodgers as well as householders, and the one invidious distinction now made by causing lodgers to claim personally and specially should be abolished. In view of recent decisions, it is questionable whether the lodger £10 qualification ought not to be swept away. A lodger who has been in his lodgings for a year in a single room is as much a settled person as a householder of a single room who has been in possession for the same period, and the question whether he is to be called a lodger or a householder ought not to depend on whether be holds from a Company or from an individual, or whether his landlord's daughter does or does not keep the key in her pocket. Incidentally, too, the law of naturalisation appears to require amendment. It seems absurd that a Polish Jew who has lived in England for twenty years may not vote unless he pays £5 to be naturalised, while a German Jew, whose parents were Hanoverians, born in 1835, may probably vote if he has only been in England from July 31st, 1884, to July 31st, 1883. We ought not to emulate the Romans, who for a great sum sold the citizenship. A formal declaration with a Gd. stamp ought to be enough to entitle every one who has been a denizen for the prescribed period to become naturalised. At all events, the objection ought to be taken before the Revising Barrister, not before an Election Judge. The register should be conclusive of the right to vote. The overseers and the barrister should be made personally responsible for its accuracy, and penalties should be imposed for fraudulently getting a place on the register, not merely for fraudulent voting. By this means a material diminution would be effected in election risks and election expenses, not excepting the expenses of registration.
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