treating

There was an offence of treating under section 94 of the Dominion Elections Act 1874.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

In New Zealand, section 217 of the Electoral Act 1993 relates to treating and defines the offence as a corrupt practice.[https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0087/latest/DLM310402.html Electoral Act 1993], s 217 Following the 2023 New Zealand general election, the Electoral Commission investigated the provision of food at Manurewa Marae while it was used as a polling station.{{cite news |url= https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/301005958/electoral-commission-polling-place-decision-under-fire-amidst-recount-and-voting-irregularities |title=Electoral Commission polling place decision under fire amidst recount and voting irregularities |first=Will |last=Trafford |work=Stuff |date=9 November 2023 |accessdate=19 November 2023}}

Image:William Hogarth 032.jpg's Canvassing for Votes (1755) (see Humours of an Election)]]

File:BingamElection.jpg

Treating is an electoral fraud criminal offence in the United Kingdom. Treating occurs when an election candidate or their agents offer material incentives for people to vote for them or to abstain from voting. It is a triable either way offence with the sentence being up to either an unlimited fine, one year imprisonment or both.{{cite web|url=http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/03/Electoral-Law_Regulation_Research.pdf |title=Electoral Law Regulation |publisher=Law Commission |date= |accessdate=18 April 2019}}

Historically, the issue of treating at elections was dealt with under common law. An early statute on treating was the Treating Act 1695 (7 & 8 Will. 3. c. 4) (1695 or 1696).Pickering, 1849, p 12. Clerk, 1852, p 119. In 1840, the House of Lords debated putting treating on a statutory footing similar to bribery, but argued that poor electors should be entitled to receive refreshments from candidates if they took a day off work to vote.{{cite web|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1840/may/28/bribery-and-treating |title=Bribery and Treating. (Hansard, 28 May 1840) |work=Hansard |date= |accessdate=18 April 2019}} An early example of treating which led to an election petition to the Election court which nullified an election result was in 1868 in Youghal where the winner Christopher Weguelin was found guilty of treating for buying food and drink for voters in exchange for their vote.{{cite news|title=The Youghal Election Petition|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000156/18690420/008/0003|accessdate=18 April 2019|newspaper=Bury and Norwich Post|date=20 April 1869|page=3|via = British Newspaper Archive}}

The current offence of treating was created under section 114 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.{{cite web|url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1983/2/section/114 |title=Representation of the People Act 1983 |publisher=Legislation.gov.uk |date= |accessdate=18 April 2019}} It stated if election candidates or their agents offered any food, drink, entertainment or any payment in order to make any attempt to prevent voting or to sway voters to vote for them, then they have committed the offence of treating. The recipient is also guilty of the offence if they accept it. The Crown Prosecution Service stated they would only prosecute treating if it was in the public interest and would not prosecute in situations such as if it could not have affected the election process, if it was a genuine mistake or did not go against the spirit of the Representation of the People Act.{{cite web|url=https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/election-offences |title=Election Offences |publisher=Crown Prosecution Service |date=11 September 2006 |accessdate=18 April 2019}}

In 1911, Seymour King, an MP with 25 years' service, lost his seat after he was discovered to have given coal to the poor and sweets to children to commemorate his length of service, which counted as treating. In 2014, the police received four reports of the alleged offence.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32259302|title=Reality Check: Is giving voters sausage rolls illegal?|work=BBC News|date=10 April 2015|accessdate=18 April 2019}} In the 2010s, there have been some modern examples of the offence. In April 2015, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets Lutfur Rahman (Tower Hamlets First) was found guilty of a number of electoral fraud offences, including treating, during the 2014 Tower Hamlets mayoral election which resulted in an election court declaring the result of the election null and void leading to Rahman being removed from office.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32428648 |title=Tower Hamlets election fraud mayor Lutfur Rahman removed from office |work=BBC News |date=23 April 2015 |accessdate=18 April 2019}} An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-32234567 |title=Election 2015: UKIP candidate 'to be questioned' over sausage rolls |work=BBC News |date=10 April 2015 |accessdate=18 April 2019}} however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.{{cite web|author=Press Association |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/14/ukip-candidate-in-clear-over-alleged-voter-wooing-with-sausage-rolls |title=Ukip candidate in clear over alleged voter wooing with sausage rolls |work=The Guardian |date= 14 April 2015|accessdate=18 April 2019}} The UKIP leader Nigel Farage criticised the allegation of treating.{{cite web|first=Rowena |last=Mason |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/10/nigel-farage-backs-ukip-candidate-sausage-roll-bribery-row-southampton-jimmy-white |title=Nigel Farage backs Ukip candidate in sausage roll bribery row |work=The Guardian |date= 10 April 2015|accessdate=18 April 2019}}

• Bribery
• Electoral fraud

{{Reflist}}

• Callum Smith. [https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/the-origins-of-sleaze-visual-culture-amp-electoral-treating-durin "The Origins of Sleaze: Visual Culture & Electoral Treating during the 1784 Westminster Election"]. ECPPEC Conference at Newcastle University, 2022.
• Morgan, "An Eighteenth-Century Election in England" (1922) 37 Political Science Quarterly [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2142458 585] at 596 and 597
• [https://ecppec.ncl.ac.uk/features/electoral-corruption-in-the-long-eighteenth-century/ "Electoral Corruption in the Long Eighteenth Century"]
• Dickinson. The Politics of the People in Eighteenth-century Britain. [https://archive.org/details/politicsofpeople0000dick/page/29/mode/1up p 29].
• O'Leary. [https://archive.org/details/eliminationofcor0000olea/page/n6/mode/1up The Elimination of Corrupt Practices in British Elections, 1868–1911]. 1962.

• Ermatinger. "Treating". Canadian Franchise and Election Laws. 1886. Pages [https://books.google.com/books?id=xJAtAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA258 258] to 269.
• McPherson. "Treating Voter during Election". [https://books.google.com/books?id=beUNAQAAMAAJ The Law of Elections in Canada]. 1905. Page 432.
• Boyer. Election Law in Canada. Butterworths. 1987. vol 2. pp 719, 953, 965, 970, 990, 1050, 1059, 1067, [https://archive.org/details/electionlawincan0000boye/page/1074/mode/1up 1074], 1075, 1085, 1087, 1110, 1123, 1128, 1135 and 1157.

• Costa. "Treating". [https://books.google.com/books?id=gmMmAAAAMAAJ Law of Parliamentary Elections]. 1985. Pages 41 and 75. Revised version of University of Colombo thesis.

Category:Political corruption

Category:Electoral fraud