28,000,000 May Vote In British Election

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27663, 20 May 1955, Page 13

28,000,000 May Vote In British Election

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, May 19.

About 80 per cent, of Britain’s 35,000,000 qualified voters are expected to take part in the General Election on May 26, although there is no compulsion on any of them to vote.

The electoral system on polling day will be the culmination of a series of legal protections to ensure that the election is absolutely free from compulsion to vote and that voting is carried out with the utmost secrecy. Officially the election began two days ago when all candidates in the fight for seats in the House of Commons notified their intention to stand and deposited £l5O. This sum is returnable if they obtain more than oneeighth of the total votes cast in each constituency.

The depositing of this guarantee money is the country’s way of attempting to prevent frivolous candidatures, which cost the nation money and annoy the voters. To some extent, it succeeds in its purpose. Already, a number of people who announced that they intended to stand, have since realised that they had no chance of even saving their deposit, let alone being elected, and have withdrawn. But a few would-be members of Parliament who have no possible hope of election do stay in the fight, sometimes because of their fanatical faith in their cause, sometimes as a rather expensive form of amusement and sometimes for notoriety. The partici-

pation of freak candidates is one of the penalties which British voters pay for allowing anyone of either sex to stand for Parliament, unless they have been convicted of an indictable offence or are undischarged bankrupts. Clergy of the Church of England, the established church, are also not allowed to stand, although non-Conformist ministers can and do.

One candidate this year, Mr C. Rees, a Welsh Nationalist, is planning his campaign from a prison cell where he is serving a year’s sentence for failing to submit himself to a medical examination under the Armed Forces Act, while several Northern Ireland candidates, representing the extremist Sinn Fein group, are also in prison. Most of the nominations are sponsored by one of the three main political parties, Conservatives, Labour or Liberal, each of which also has within its ranks a number of associated groups such as the Co-operative Movement, which puts forward candidates as “Labour-Co-operative” and the National Liberals (a Right-wing off-shoot of the Liberal Partv) and Ulster Unionists, who fight with the Conservative nominees. The only other party which has a recognised entity is the Communist Party, which is contesting about 16 of the 630 seats. Every citizen over 21 is entitled to vote, except persons serving a term of imprisonment and inmates of mental hospitals. Before election day, all eligible voters will have received a card telling them where to vote. Although, normally, voting must be done in person, provision is made for

voting either by post or by proxy in the case of troops serving overseas, sailors and fishermen who will be at sea on polling day, candidate* and election officials who are engaged on election duties in an area other than where they live, and people who by reason of blindness or physical disability cannot go to the poll In person. There are nearly 50,000 polling stations in Britain, molt of them in church halls or schools. They are open for voting between 7 a m. and 9 p.m. Sometimes, where there are two candidates with the same surname, voting becomes a complex matter for those not very well informed about the personalities of the election. One constituency in the coming election has probably achieved a record by having three candidates, all with the surname of Hughes. It is the Welsh constituency of Anglesey where the candidates are Owen Hughes (Conservative). a schoolmaster; Cledwyn Hughes (Labour), a solicitor; and John Williams Hughes (Liberal), a broadcaster and writer.

To try to avoid the complications arising from posters pleading “Vote Hughes.” they are being known as Hughes the School.” “Hughes the Law, and “Hughes the News.”