Every elector of a knight of a shire shall have freehold to the value of 40s. a year within the county, which is to be clear of all charges and deductions, except parlia mentary and parochial taxes. No per son shall vote in right of any freehold granted fraudulently, to qualify him to vote ; and every person who shall prepare or execute such conveyance, or shall give his vote under it, shall forfeit 40/. 10 Anne, c. 25. No person shall vote for a knight of the shire, without having been in the actual possession of the estate for which he votes, or in the receipt of the rents or profits to his own use,above twelve calendar months, unless it come to him by descent, marriage, marriage-settlement, devise, or promotion to a benefice or of fice. 18 Geo. II. c. 1. No person con victed of perjury shall be capable of vot ing at an election. No person shall vote in respect of an annuity or rent-charge, unless registered with the clerk of the peace twelve calendar months before ; such annuity or rent charge must issue out of freehold estate. No person shall vote for a knight of h shire, in respect of any messuages, lands, or tenements, which have not been charged to the land-tax six calendar months before. 20 Geo. III. c. 17. No person shall vote for any estate holden by copy of court-roll. 31 Geo. II.
In mortgaged, or trust-estates, the mort gagor, or cestuy Tile trust, shall vote, and not the trustee or mortgagee, unless they be in actual possession. All conveyances to multiply voices, or to split votes, shall be void ; and no more than one voice shall he admitted for one and the same house or tenement.
The right of election in boroughs is va rious, depending entirely on the several charters, customs, and constitutions of the respective places. By 2 Geo. II. c. 24, this right of voting, for the future, shall be allowed according to the last de termination of the House of Commons concerning it.
And no person, claiming to vote in right of his being a freeman of a corporation (other than such as claim by birth, mar riage, or servitude) shall be allowed, un less he have been admitted to his freedom twelve calendar months before, 3 Geo. III.
c. 15. All undue influence whatever up on the electors is illegal, and strongly prohibited. As soon as the time and place of election within counties or boroughs are fixed, all soldiers quartered in the place are to remove, at least one day be fore the election, to the distance of two miles or more, and not to return till one day after the poll be ended ; except in the liberty of Westminster, or other resi dence of the royal family, in respect of his Majesty's guards, and in fortified places. 8 Geo. II. c. 30. By the 7th and 8th Will. c. 4. to prevent bribery and cor ruption, no candidate, after teste of the writ of summons, or after a place becomes vacant in parliament time, shall, by him self, or by any other ways or means on his behalf, or at his charge, before his elec tion, directly or indirectly, give, or pro mise to give, to any elector, any money, meat, drink, provision, present, reward, or entertainment, to or for any such elec tor in particular, or to any county, city, town, borough, port, or place in general, in order to his being elected, on pain of being incapacitated. To guard still more against gross and flagrant acts of bribery, it is enacted by 2 Geo. II. c. 24, explained and enlarged by 9 Geo. II. c. 38, and 16
Geo. III. c. 11, that if any money, gift, office, employment, or reward, be given, or promised to be given, to any voter, at any time, in order to influence him to give or withhold hisvote, as well he that takes, as he that offers, such a bribe, forfeits 5001. and is for ever disabled from voting and holding any office in any corporation, unless, before conviction, he will discover some other offender of the same kind, and then he is indemnified for his own offence.
If the election shall not be determined upon view, with consent of the freeholders there present, but a poll shall be demand ed, the same shall commence on the day on which such demand is made, or on the next day at farthest (if it be not Sunday, and then on the day after) and shall be proceeded in from day to day (Sundays excepted) until finished, and shall not continue more than fifteen days (Sundays excepted) ; and the poll shall be kept open seven hours at least each day, be tween eight in the morning and eight in the evening, 25 Geo. III. c. 84. The she riff shall allow a cheque-book for every poll-book for each candidate, to be kept by their inspectors at the place of taking the poll, 19 Geo.II. c. 28. By the 34 Geo. HI. c. 73, in order to expedite the business at elections, the returning officers are en abled, on request of the candidates, to appoint persons to administer to voters the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, the declaration of fidelity, the oath of adjura tion, and the declaration or affirmation of the effect thereof, previously to their coming to vote ; and to grant the voters certificates of their having taken the said oath ; without which certificate they shall not be permitted to vote, if they are re quired to take the oaths, Every freeholder, before he shall be ad mitted to poll for a knight of the shire, shall, if required by a candidate or any elector, make oath of his qualification to vote ; in which case the sheriffand clerks shall enter the place of his freehold, and the place of his abode, as he shall disclose the same at the time of giving his vote ; and shall enterjurat against the name of every such voter who shall have taken the oath, 10 Anne, c. 23. s. 5. After the election, the names of the persons chosen shall be written in an indenture, under the seals of the electors, and tacked to the writ.
The election being closed, the return ing officer in boroughs returns his pre cept to the sheriff; with the persons elected by the majority. And the sheriff returns the whole, together with the writ for the county, and the names of the knights elected thereupon, to the clerk of the crown in Chancery, before the day of meeting, if it be a new parlia ment ; or within fourteen days after the election, if it be an occasional va cancy ; and this under the penalty of 5001. if the sheriff do not return such knights only as are duly elected, he for feits, by stat. Henry 'VI. 1001. and the returning officer of a borough for a like false return 401. and by the late statutes One thing c(6 Two things (e Three things And generally of any number n, all the elections are that is, one less than the power of 2, whose exponent is n ; the number of single things to be chosen, either separately, or in combinations, thus, when p--=12, the answer is =4096-1=4095.