{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/electoral-administration-act-2006/section-40",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/electoral-administration-act-2006/section-40.json",
  "legislation": "ukpga/2006/22",
  "legislation_title": "Electoral Administration Act 2006",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/electoral-administration-act-2006",
  "path": "section/40",
  "kind": "section",
  "number": "40",
  "heading": "Offences relating to applications for postal and proxy votes",
  "text": "After section 62 of the 1983 Act (offences as to declarations) insert—\n“Offences relating to applications for postal and proxy votes\n62A (1) A person commits an offence if he—\n(a) engages in an act specified in subsection (2) at a parliamentary or local government election, and\n(b) intends, by doing so, to deprive another of an opportunity to vote or to make for himself or another a gain of a vote to which he or the other is not otherwise entitled or a gain of money or property.\n(2) These are the acts—\n(a) applying for a postal or proxy vote as some other person (whether that other person is living or dead or is a fictitious person);\n(b) otherwise making a false statement in, or in connection with, an application for a postal or proxy vote;\n(c) inducing the registration officer or returning officer to send a postal ballot paper or any communication relating to a postal or proxy vote to an address which has not been agreed to by the person entitled to the vote;\n(d) causing a communication relating to a postal or proxy vote or containing a postal ballot paper not to be delivered to the intended recipient.\n(3) In subsection (1)(b), property includes any description of property.\n(4) In subsection (2) a reference to a postal vote or a postal ballot paper includes a reference to a proxy postal vote or a proxy postal ballot paper (as the case may be).\n(5) A person who commits an offence under subsection (1) or who aids, abets, counsels or procures the commission of such an offence is guilty of a corrupt practice.\n(6) This section does not apply to anything done at a local government election in Scotland.”",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "type": "I",
      "label": "I1",
      "text": "S. 40 wholly in force at 11.9.2006, see s. 77(2)-(4) and S.I. 2006/1972, art. 3, Sch. 1 para. 7 (subject to transitional provisions in Sch. 2)"
    }
  ],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/22/section/40",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T09:14:27.599518+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}