ot alter the place, without the consent of all the
candidates; and in all such cases ten days public notice must be given
of the time and place of the election.

AND, as it is essential to the very being of parliament that elections
should be absolutely free, therefore all undue influences upon the
electors are illegal, and strongly prohibited. For Mr Locke[k] ranks
it among those breaches of trust in the executive magistrate, which
according to his notions amount to a dissolution of the government,
"if he employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society to
corrupt the representatives, or openly to preingage the electors, and
prescribe what manner of persons shall be chosen. For thus to regulate
candidates and electors, and new model the ways of election, what is
it, says he, but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the
very fountain of public security?" As soon therefore as the time and
place of election, either in counties or boroughs, are fixed, all
soldiers quartered in the place are to remove, at least one day before
the election, to the distance of two miles or more; and not return
till one day after the poll is ended. Riots likewise have been
frequently determined to make an election void. By vote also of the
house of commons, to whom alone belongs the power of determining
contested elections, no lord of parliament, or lord lieutenant of a
county, hath any right to interfere in the election of commoners; and,
by statute, the lord warden of the cinque ports shall not recommend
any members there. If any officer of the excise, customs, stamps, or
certain other branches of the revenue, presumes to intermeddle in
elections, by persuading any voter or dissuading him, he forfeits
100_l_, and is disabled to hold any office.

[Footnote k: on Gov. part. 2. Sec. 222.]

THUS are the electors of one branch of the legislature secured from
any undue influence from either of the other two, and from all
external violence and compulsion. But the greatest danger is that in
which themselves co-operate, by the infamous practice of bribery and
corruption. To prevent which it is enacted that no candidate shall,
after the date (usually called the _teste_) of the writs, or after the
vacancy, give any money or entertainment to his electors, or promise
to give any, either to particular persons, or to the place in general,
in order to his being elected; on pain of being incapable to serve for
that place in parliament.