of a friendly nation indicate allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power. The High Court, Brennan, Deane and Toohey JJ, dismissed the petition in December 1987 on technical grounds. The brief judgment made a number of observations about section 44 of the Constitution The disqualification is not simply for the conviction of an offence, but the person must be serving a sentence of imprisonment for one year or more or "subject to be sentenced" for that offence. Thus a person is not disqualified after the sentence has been served. the person must have been adjudged to be an "undischarged insolvent" the allegation of allegiance to a foreign power did not identify the foreign power nor the acknowledgement of that allegiance. Re Wood When Wood applied for a passport some months after entering parliament, it transpired that while he was a long-term resident of Australia, he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and had only obtained Australian citizenship on 3 February 1988. The High Court unanimously determined on 12 May 1988 that as he was not an Australian citizen prior to 3 February 1988, he was not entitled to be nominated for election as a senator and therefore had never been validly elected. The decision was based on the explicit requirement in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, that a candidate must be an Australian citizen. The High Court followed Vardon v O'Loghlin, as to the consequence of the void election. Wood's presence in the Senate did not invalidate the proceedings of the Senate. In this case they held that the vacancy could be filled by the further counting or recounting of the ballot papers. The High Court expressly declined to rule on the question of whether being a dual citizen of the United Kingdom would also disqualify a candidate from election. Aftermath The recount of the ballot resulted in the election in his place of Irina Dunn, who had been second on the ticket of the NDP. Further controversy occurred when the NDP asked Dunn to resign so that Wood could reclaim his seat, following his assumption of Australian citizenship in 1988. Dunn refused, resulting in her expulsion from the party, and she remained in parliament as an independent until her defeat in the 1990 election. Wood contested that election as the first-ranked candidate for the Nuclear Disarmament Party in New South Wales, polling just over 1 per cent