Over at ConservativeHome there’s some speculation that John McCain might pick Virginian Congressman Eric Cantor as his Vice-Presidential candidate.
What I’d like to know is… if McCain decides to pick someone else, will Rep. Cantor become Eric Cantor-nah?
Trick AND Treating
Election candidates (of all political hues) have two main tasks in order to be successful. Firstly, they need to persuade voters that they are the best candidate. Secondly, they need to persuade voters who are already inclined to support them that it is worth making the trip down to the polling station in order to vote for them. Of course in reality it’s a lot more complicated than that, but if you boil it right down those two tasks are what you tend to be left with.
Now as part of this process, there are also a whole series of electoral laws and offences to keep candidates in check. You can find a list of them here. I’d like to focus on two of them – bribery and treating:
Bribery – A person is guilty of bribery if they directly or indirectly give any money or procure any office to or for any voter, in order to induce any voter to vote, or not vote, for a particular candidate; or to vote or refrain from voting.6 (Corrupt practice: offence may be tried summarily or on indictment. One year on indictment).
Treating – A person is guilty of treating if either before, during or after an election they directly or indirectly give or provide (or pay wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing) any food, drink, entertainment or provision in order to influence any voter to vote or refrain from voting.7 (Corrupt practice: offence may be tried summarily or on indictment. One year on indictment).
Note that the above laws cover both of the scenarios I commented on at the start of this post. Bribing or treating an elector is a corrupt practice regardless of whether a candidate or Party is trying to change the way in which someone is trying to vote, or simply trying to increase their propensity to cast a ballot in the first place.
So, where does this leave the “doughnuts for votes” proposals put forward by Hazel Blears? Well, a person is guilty of treating voters if they “directly or indirectly give or provide (or pay wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing) any food, drink, entertainment or provision in order to influence any voter to vote or refrain from voting“.
Offering doughnuts, shopping vouchers or entry into a free prize draw clearly fall foul of the laws on treating and bribery. These election offences are not there for a bit of a giggle. They are there to keep our elections as fair as physically possible. These new proposals drive a double-decker bus through our election law. They are not for the good of democracy but simply to allow Hazel Blears and her Labour colleagues to bribe, cajole and treat reluctant Labour voters to the polls using vast sums of taxpayers’ money. It is a truly abhorrent and undemocratic proposal.