An election petition refers to the procedure for challenging the result of a Parliamentary election. Outcomes When a petition is lodged against an election return, there are 4 possible outcomes: The election is declared void. The result is quashed and a writ is issued for a new election The election is held to have been undue: the original return is quashed, and another candidate is declared to have been elected. The election is upheld, and the member returned is found to have been duly elected. The petition is withdrawn. This may occur when the petitioner fails to attend a hearing, or when Parliament is dissolved before the petition process is complete History Controverted elections had been originally tried by select committees, afterwards by the Committee of Privileges and Elections, and ultimately by the whole House of Commons, with scandalous partiality, but under the Grenville Act of 1770 (10 Geo III. c. 16), and other later acts, by select committees, so constituted as to form a more judicial tribunal. The influence of party bias, however, too obviously prevailed until 1839, when Robert Peel introduced an improved system of nomination, which distinctly raised the character of election committees; but a tribunal constituted of political partisans, however chosen, was still open to jealousy and suspicion. At length the Parliamentary Elections Act 1868 transferred the trial of election petitions to judges of the superior courts, to whose determination the House gives effect, by the issue of new writs or otherwise. The House, however, still retains and exercises its jurisdiction in all cases not relegated, by statute, to the judges. Petitions, which resulted in the election in a constituency being held void used to be common after every general election, but are now rare. When an election was held void the House of Commons could seat another candidate, order a new writ issued to fill the vacancy or leave the writ unissued for a time, thus suspending the representation of a constituency. As the tolerance of corrupt elections became less during the 18th and 19th centuries, boroughs found to be corrupt could be punished by either changing the area and the qualifications for voting or disenfranchising the constituency completely. Such mechanism also exists in Hong Kong, then a British colony, and in Australia, New Zealand or other (ex-)Commonwealth nations. Cases In 1961, Tony Benn was disqualified from taking up his seat after a by-election by