14 Nov r 1809

Parl Reform Plan – Articles

I Members

Art. 2. Let No Member occupying a situation which renders him dependent on the Crown

as per test except as exceptant[?] possession Vote:

Art. 3. From their incapacities[?] let military commissions in the land and

sea-service, as per list be excepted.

Art. 4. In each one of principal civil official departments, as per list, let an

officer or officers be under an obligation of paying attendance in the House,

possessing at the same time a general right of making motions and determining

speeches on the same footing as a Member of the House, subject however at all times

to any such conditions restrictions and modifications as the House may at any time

think fit to impose.

II Attractions.[?]

Art. 5.

For securing on the part of every Member a general habit of attendance let such means

as promise to be most effectual be employed.

II. Qualifications & Disqualifications

Art. 14[?] If the right of voting in Elections for Members be vested as hereinafter

proposed, net no qualification be exacted, other than the absence of certain

particular efficient causes of disqualification, as per list.

III. Responsibility to public opinion

Art. 6.

Art. 6. For taking down and publishing in the most correct and compleat and prompt

manner, the speeches of Members and all other the transactions of the House let the

most effectual means that in other cases are in use or that can be devised be

constantly employed.

IV Duration in Office

Art. 7. Let the Election of Members take place every year, viz. in every /each/

Electoral district on the first day of the year, power being reserved to the King to

dissolve the Parliament at any other time as at present

II. Electors.

V. Mode of voting

Art. 8.Home Voters. On the election of a Member let the votes in general viz. those

of home voters be delivered in the secret mode: for example

by ballot:

V: Mode of voting

Art. 9. Let the vote of each out-voter be delivered /emitted/ in the epistolary mode:

viz. either by an instrument signed by him, and transmitted to the returning officer

by the post, (with proper precautions to prevent suppression) or by an appointment

made by a like instrument) of a proxy in the person of a house-voter by whom the vote

shall together with his own be delivered in the secret mode.

VI. Qualification

Art. 10. Let the qualification of an Elector consist universally in the payment of so

much money for the last preceding half year to some direct and permanent tax such as

the assessed taxes the evidence of the right {being of the documentary kind, and} consisting of a printed instrument provided for the

purpose, with blanks to be filled up and the instrument signed by the collector by

whom the tax is received, and let the instrument be printed in the same paper with

that on which the receipt is given for the amount of the taxes.

VI. Qualification

Art. 11. Let the amount of the qualification money be the same as that which has been

fixed in the case of Jurymen: but without require[?] to the nature of the source from

whence the income is derived: i.e. whether from landed property in the shape of

freehold, d o in the shape of copyhold or leasehold, government

annuities, or profit of trade, and so forth.

VII. Electoral Districts

Art. 12. For the fixation of the number of seats in the House and the assemblage of

voters to be allowed to each seat, let each kingdom be divided into Electoral

Districts: taking for the basis of the division, not extent of territory but

population: and to correspond with /make provision for/ the changes to which

population is exposed, let a fresh division be made every 100, 50, or 25 years.