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CHAPTER VII.

THE OFFICE AND DUTIES OF THE ELECTION AGENT.

SECTION I.-HIS APPOINTMENT.

agent.

The Act of 1883 creates a new officer, the election agent, The election with difficult and important duties, upon the due fulfilment of which the validity of the election largely depends. This officer bears no resemblance to any other agent known to the law, except the agent for election expenses, created by the statute 26 & 27 Vict. c. 29, s. 2, whose duties and many others he will have to discharge. He is not to be confounded with the person who has hitherto borne the name of the election agent, meaning thereby the person to whose experience and intelligence the management and control of the election have hitherto been confided. In future," the election agent," using the phrase in its statutory sense, may or may not be the person who plans and directs the operations of the campaign. As the election agent is to make all contracts relating to the election, and as the measure of the candidate's responsibility for his acts is greater than that for the acts of any other agent, it will be found safer, though perhaps inconvenient, to dissever these offices in future. A candidate will be at some disadvantage who imposes upon his chief counsellor and manager the very anxious and difficult duties which the Act of 1883 thrusts upon "the election agent." If the offices should be dissevered, the person who manages the election for the candidate must do so gratuitously. He cannot be legally employed for payment. (Schedule I., Part I. and Section 17). It is proper to add that "the election agent" Should be a need not even be a solicitor, but, in view of the direct and business immediate responsibility of the candidate for his acts and omissions, it can hardly be doubted that any candidate will do well to avail himself of the professional caution and legal

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habits and

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with the law.

The object of

training of a solicitor, if he can induce a solicitor to accept the office. If the candidate choose he may be his own election agent. In that event he will have only himself to blame for any slip on the part of the election agent. But, whether he choose to be his own election agent, or to appoint some other person, it is of urgent necessity that the election agent should be a person of business habits, and of experience in the conduct of elections, and intimately conversant with the provisions of the election law.

The object aimed at by the Legislature in requiring the the legislature appointment of an election agent, through whose hands all money shall pass, and by whose hands all accounts shall be paid, is the regulation and diminution of election expenses. The evil of excessive expenditure at elections has been struck at by many statutes, beginning with the 7 & 8 Will. III. c. 4, which was directed against "the excessive and exorbitant expenses, contrary to the laws and in violation of the freedom due to the election of representatives for the Commons of England in Parliament, to the great scandal of the kingdom, dishonourable, and may be destructive to the constitution of Parliament." The statute, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 102, with the same view, provided for the appointment of election auditors; but the fruit being no sweeter than the tree, these were found useless; and the Act of 1883 would imply a similar condemnation upon the agents for election expenses who were called into existence by the Act 26 & 27 Vict. c. 29, and through whom all payments for election expenses, other than the candidate's personal expenses, were to be made, under pain of fine and imprisonment.

When election agent to be named.

The appointment of the election agent is regulated by Section 24 of the Act of 1883. The section does not prescribe any particular form of appointment, which should, however, be in writing; but it provides that on or before the nomination day the election agent shall be named by or on behalf of the candidate. As contracts relating to the election are to be made, and polling agents and clerks appointed by the election agent (Section 27), it is obviously

desirable that the election agent should be appointed and named as soon as the candidate takes the field. What will happen if the candidate should not name himself or some other person as election agent on or before the nomination day is not very clear; but any inquiry on the subject is idle, for so flagrant a violation of the Act of Parliament would involve the candidate in many difficulties and considerable danger, any payments made by him, except through an election agent, being illegal practices avoiding the election. If the candidate prefers to be his own election agent he must name himself as such, and thereupon he will be subject to the liabilities imposed by the Act on election agents, as well as to those imposed upon candidates. If a candidate be nominated in his absence, or without his consent, the election agent is to be named "on his behalf." One of the nominators or seconders had better name the election agent in such a case.

In regard to naming the election agent, it is provided by Notice of his Section 24, Sub-section 3, of the Act of 1883, that on or before appointment. the day of nomination the name and address and the office

of the election agent of each candidate shall be declared in writing by the candidate, or some other person on his behalf, to the returning officer, and the returning officer shall forthwith give public notice of the name and address of every election agent so declared.

The "public notice" to be given by the returning officer is regulated by Section 62 of the Act of 1883, and the Ballot Act, 1872, Schedule I., Rule 46. He may give the notice "by advertisements, placards, handbills, or such other means as he thinks best calculated to afford information to the electors."

A candidate can only appoint one person to be his election Changing the agent; but any appointment, whether of the candidate him- election agent. self or of any other person, can be revoked. If any appointment is revoked, or the election agent die before, during, or after the election, the candidate must forthwith appoint a new election agent, and in writing declare his name and address and office to the returning officer, who will imme

Sub-agents in counties and

certain boroughs.

Risks of appointing sub-agents.

diately give public notice of the fact. (Sub-section 4 of Section 24.)

In counties, but not in boroughs, except East Retford, Shoreham, Cricklade, Much Wenlock, and Aylesbury (Schedule 1, Part 1), the election agent may, and apparently nobody else may, appoint a deputy or sub-agent to act within each polling district. The number of these sub-agents is regulated by the first schedule of the Act of 1883.

But the wisdom of appointing sub-agents at all seems extremely doubtful when Section 25, sub-section 2 of the Act of 1883 is read by the light of the fact that the candidate is responsible, and the return may be avoided for many acts done by the election agent which, if committed by any other agents, would not affect the seat. For the purpose of avoiding the seat every sub-agent, acting in his own district, is placed in the position of the election agent. If a remote sub-agent should employ and pay an assistant in excess of the number allowed, or issue a bill without the printer's name appended, the candidate's seat might not be worth an hour's purchase. In such a case the better opinion would seem to be that the candidate could have no relief under Section 22 of the Act of 1883; but in some instances he might have relief under Section 23 of the Act. Section 25, Sub-section 2, enacts: "As regards matters in a polling district, the election agent date's liability may act by the sub-agent for that district, and anything done for sub-agent's for the purposes of this Act by or to the sub-agent in his

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acts.

district shall be deemed to be done by or to the election agent, and any act or default of a sub-agent which, if he were the election agent, would be an illegal practice or other offence against this Act, shall be an illegal practice and offence against this Act committed by the sub-agent, and the sub-agent shall be liable to punishment accordingly; and the candidate shall suffer the like incapacity as if the said act or default had been the act or default of the election agent." If, notwithstanding these dangers, the candidate should direct the election agent to appoint sub-agents, and in counties it is not easy to do without them, he should satisfy himself of the caution and ability of the persons to be

appointed, and their knowledge of the law, and the election. agent must at least two days before the polling declare in writing to the returning officer the name and address of each sub-agent and his office within his district, just as in the case of the election agent himself. The returning officer will then give public notice of the appointments in the usual way.

appointment.

It would seem from the language of Section 29, Subsection 1, of the Act of 1883, that the authority of the sub- Revocation of agent does not come to an end with the poll or with the sub-agent's return. This view is strengthened by Section 25, Subsection 2, which places him in the position of the election agent, so far as the candidate's liability for his acts is concerned. But it would be prudent on the part of the election agent to revoke the appointment of the sub-agents as soon as the poll has closed. By Section 25, Sub-section 4, it is provided "The appointment of a sub-agent shall not be vacated by the election agent who appointed him ceasing to be election agent, but may be revoked by the election agent for the time being of the candidate, and in the event of such revocation or of the death of a sub-agent another sub-agent may be appointed, and his name and address shall be forthwith declared in writing to the returning officer who shall forthwith give public notice of the same."

Although there is no express provision on the point, it would be well to give the returning officer immediate notice in writing of the revocation.

election

agent and

The election agent and sub-agents must have offices. By Offices of the Section 26, Sub-section 1, it is provided that an election agent at an election for a county or borough shall have sub-agent. within the county or borough, or within any county of a city or town adjoining thereto, and a sub-agent shall have within his district, or within a county of a city or town adjoining thereto, an office or place to which all claims, notices, writs, summons, and documents, may be sent, and the address of such office shall be declared at the same time as the appointment of the said agent to the returning officer, and shall be stated in the public notice of the name of the agent.

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