Singapore legislation
Section 37
Section 37
Offences
(1)
Every person who —
forges or fraudulently defaces or fraudulently destroys any nomination paper, or delivers to the Returning Officer any nomination paper knowing it to be forged;
forges or counterfeits or fraudulently defaces or fraudulently destroys any ballot paper or return envelope or the official mark on any ballot paper or return envelope for its authentication;
without due authority supplies any ballot paper or return envelope to any person;
sells or offers to sell any ballot paper or return envelope to any person or purchases or offers to purchase any ballot paper or return envelope from any person;
not being a person entitled under this Act to be in possession of any ballot paper or return envelope which has been marked with the official mark in accordance with this Act, has any such ballot paper or return envelope in his or her possession;
puts into any ballot box anything other than the ballot paper which he or she is authorised by law to put in;
(fa)puts into any return envelope anything other than the postal ballot paper which he or she is authorised by law to put in;
without due authority takes out of the polling station any ballot paper (other than a postal ballot paper) or is found in possession of any ballot paper (other than a postal ballot paper) outside a polling station;
(ga)without due authority intentionally opens, unseals or tampers with a sealed return envelope;
(gb)without due authority intentionally damages a sealed return envelope;
without due authority destroys, takes, opens, or otherwise interferes with any ballot box, packet of ballot papers or any DRE voting machine or direct recording electronic voting equipment approved under section 33B(2) in use or intended to be used for the purposes of an election;
without due authority prints any ballot paper or what purports to be or is capable of being used as a ballot paper at an election; or
manufactures, constructs, imports into Singapore, has in his or her possession, supplies or uses for the purpose of an election, or causes to be manufactured, constructed, imported into Singapore, supplied or used for the purpose of any election, any appliance, device or mechanism by which a ballot paper may be extracted, affected or manipulated after having been deposited in a ballot box during the polling at any election,shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction by a District Court to a fine and to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years and shall become incapable for a period of 7 years from the date of his or her conviction of being registered as an elector or of voting at any election under this Act or of being elected as the President or a Member of Parliament.
(2)
Every person who attempts to commit an offence specified in this section shall be liable to the punishment prescribed for that offence.
(3)
Every offence under this section is an arrestable offence within the meaning of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010.
(4)
In a prosecution for an offence in relation to a nomination paper, ballot box, ballot paper, return envelope, DRE voting machine, direct recording electronic voting equipment or marking instrument at an election, the property in the nomination paper, ballot box, ballot paper, return envelope, DRE voting machine, direct recording electronic voting equipment or marking instrument, as well as the property in the counterfoil of any ballot paper, may be stated to be in the Returning Officer at that election.
(5)
A prosecution for an offence under this section may only be instituted with the consent of the Public Prosecutor.
(6)
This section extends to a citizen of Singapore who engages in any conduct wholly or partly outside Singapore that constitutes an offence described in subsection (1) as if the offence had been committed in Singapore.