Submitted on Thursday 2nd March 2017
Rejected on Monday 13th March 2017
Current status: Rejected
Rejection code: duplicate (see below for details)
New offence of "perverting democracy through untrue or misleading facts"
Make it a criminal offence for a politician or news organisation, or any person acting on their behalf, to make a public representation of fact that they know is, or might be, untrue or misleading and where they intend, by making the representation, to influence voting in an election or referendum.
The wording is based on the Fraud Act 2006. Voting influenced by lies is not democracy; it is a perversion of democracy. In campaigning for Brexit, many untrue and misleading public statements of fact were made, most notably on the side of a red bus. Knowingly false statements in order to influence voters should be a criminal offence. The offence would not cover for example statements made in Parliament, subjectively-worded statements or where a statement expresses any degree of uncertainty.
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The Government e-Petitions Team gave the following reason:
There's already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/168773
3.135.194.15 Fri, 17 May 2024 05:25:07 +0100
