I have now to determine what are the consequences under these circumstances. I think that in deciding this case I must apply what is called the Common Law of elections. This Court has held that the law sometimes called the Common Law of Parliament does not apply so as to give this Court jurisdiction to avoid an election by reason of a single illegal practice on the part of a candidate. But the Court did not deny that there is a Common Law of elections which is of general application in the case of municipal as well as Parliamentary elections. It is, after all, only a rule of common sense. The object of an election is to secure that the majority of electors shall choose the person they desire to be elected. The law to be applied is found in Woodward v. Sarsons , (1875) L.R., 10 C.P., 733, at p. 743. "We are of opinion that the true statement is that an election is to be declared void by the Common Law applicable to Parliamentary elections, if it was so conducted that the tribunal which is asked to avoid it is satisfied, as a matter of fact, either that there was no real electing at all, or that the election was not really conducted under the subsisting election laws. As to the first, the tribunal should be so satisfied, i.e., that there was no real electing by the constituency at all, if it were proved to its satisfaction that the constituency had not in fact had a free and fair opportunity of electing the candidate which the majority might prefer. This would certainly be so if a majority of the electors were proved to have been prevented from recording their votes effectively according to their own preference, by general corruption or general intimidation, or by being prevented from voting by want of the machinery for so voting, as, by polling stations being demolished, or not opened, or by other of the means of voting according to law not being supplied or supplied with such errors as to render the voting by means of them void, or by fraudulent counting of votes or false declaration of numbers by a Returning Officer, or by other such acts or mishaps. And we think the same result should follow if, by reason of any such or similar mishaps, the tribunal, without being able to say that a majority had been prevented, should be satisfied that there was reasonable ground to believe that a majority of the electors may have been prevented from electing the candidate they preferred. But if the tribunal should only be satisfied that certain of such mishaps had occurred, but should not be satisfied either that a majority had been, or that there was reasonable ground to believe that a majority might have been, prevented from electing the candidate they preferred, then we think that the existence of such mishaps would not entitle the tribunal to declare the election void by the Common Law of Parliament." Applying that principle to the present case, it appears that the petitioner had a majority of 67 votes, and, therefore, ought to have been declared elected by the Returning Officer. Through mistakes made in the counting the Returning Officer declared that the respondent was duly elected by a majority of 5. The petitioner then presented his petition, and claims the seat. It is clear that the respondent cannot say that he was himself duly elected, but he is entitled to say that the petitioner should not get the seat. He is now in the same position as if the petitioner had been declared elected, and he, the respondent, were petitioning against that return. The respondent has proved that, although the petitioner had a majority of 67, there were counted 91 votes of persons who had no right to vote, that 2 other persons, who were entitled to vote, lost their votes, and that the votes of a number of absentee voters must, through errors of the election officials, be rejected. Of these a majority of 12 wished to vote in favour of the respondent. In these circumstances can I say that the majority of the electors may not have been prevented from exercising their free choice? Suppose that, instead of 91 persons voting who had no right to vote, 91 persons who had a right to vote had come and claimed to vote, and were not allowed to vote. Clearly those persons would have been prevented from exercising their right to vote, and the election must have been declared void. I cannot see that any other result can follow when a number of persons, sufficient to change the majority into a minority, if they all voted against the candidate having the majority, have wrongly been allowed to vote. I cannot enquire how they actually voted. It is clear that they may have voted for the respondent, in which case the petitioner's majority would be larger, or that they may have all voted for the petitioner, in which case the respondent would have been elected. But the numbers being as they are, it is impossible for me to say that the majority of the electors may not have been prevented from exercising their free choice.