Representation of the People Act 1948
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| Long title | An Act to amend the law relating to parliamentary and local government elections and to corrupt and illegal practices, and for purposes connected therewith. |
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| Citation | 11 & 12 Geo. 6 c. 65 |
| Introduced by | James Chuter Ede |
| Territorial extent | United Kingdom |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 30 July 1948 |
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Status: Repealed
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The Representation of the People Act 1948 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the law relating to parliamentary and local elections. It is noteworthy for abolishing plural voting, including by the abolition of the twelve separate university constituencies; and for again increasing the number of members overall, in this case to 613.
Part I of the Act declared that in future the United Kingdom would be divided into single-member borough constituencies and county constituencies. These terms replaced the former designations of parliamentary borough/division of a parliamentary borough and parliamentary county/division of a parliamentary county (in Scotland "burgh constituencies" replaced parliamentary burghs). There were to be 613 such constituencies, in place of the 591 under previous legislation.
These were to be the only constituencies, and the Act thus abolished the university constituencies; thus graduates of universities no longer had the right to vote in two constituencies. Constituencies which had been represented by more than one MP were also abolished.
Persons eligible to vote were to be British subjects of "full age" (21 years) and "not subject to any legal incapacity to vote", provided that they were registered to vote in the constituency. Each voter was only permitted to cast a single vote in one constituency, even if for some reason they were registered in more than one. The arrangements which had given plural votes to electors who met a property qualification because of their business or shop premises were abolished.
Each constituency was to have an electoral registration officer, who was to compile the electoral register. In England and Wales, this officer was the clerk of the appropriate county or borough council; in Scotland, it was the assessor of a county or large burgh; and in Northern Ireland it was the town clerk of the county borough of Belfast or the secretary of the county council. An electoral register was to be published in Spring and Autumn of each year.
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