Undue Influence and intimidation of voters
Undue influence
A person is guilty of undue influence if they carry out an activity on account of:
- a person having voted in a particular way or refrained from voting
- assuming a person to have voted in a particular way or to have refrained from voting
These activities are:
- using or threatening to use violence against a person
- damaging or destroying, or threatening to damage or destroy a person’s property
- damaging or destroying, or threatening to damage or destroy a person’s reputation
- causing or threatening to cause financial loss to a person
- causing spiritual injury to, or placing undue spiritual pressure on, a person
- doing any other act designed to intimidate a person
- doing any act designed to deceive a person in relation to the administration of an election
Undue influence doesn’t exclusively relate to physical access to the polling station. For example, a leaflet that threatens to make use of force in order to induce a voter to vote in a particular way could also be undue influence.