Clause 44 - Returning officers: correction of
Electoral Administration Bill
2:15 pm
David Heath (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Leader of the House, Law Officers (Constitutional Affairs); Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful. I am not entirely convinced that we should prosecute returning officers for errors and omissions that are made neither with intent nor through recklessness. In any case, to revisit debates that have been held elsewhere, and as the Minister says, people make mistakes. However, they are not usually hauled before the courts for it. They should be allowed to correct an innocent error; but if an error or omission was made with intent to pervert the course of an election, it should be prosecuted irrespective of whether it was subsequently discovered and corrected. The offence is described wrongly. Innocent errors and acts of omission should not be dealt with as if they were criminal offences, but deliberate errors or acts of omission ought to be dealt with seriously even if they are subsequently corrected.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 44 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 45 and 46 ordered to stand part of the Bill.