Implicit in that authority is the jurisdiction to determine whether a person has been validly elected, which is commonly known as a "disputed return" and gives the court its name.
The court is an attempt to eliminate the partisan nature of parliament and give the determination of electoral disputes to an independent and dispassionate neutral body.
That has occurred in the Northern Territory, Australia, which has a special and separate court determines those disputes.
Those disputes were resolved through what is described by authors Graeme Orr and George Williams as "custom, force and administrative action".
The first laws to regulate elections in England were passed in the reign of Henry IV.
The law came about due to the confusion caused when letters were purportedly issued disqualifying lawyers from voting or being elected.
6. c. 7) was passed allowing the common law courts to become involved in the determination of these disputes.
[3] In 1604, during the reign of James I, a dispute arose as to the election of Sir Francis Goodwin for the seat of Buckinghamshire.
However, the House of Commons established its own committee and found that Goodwin was validly elected.
From the early 17th century, the resolution of disputed returns became accepted as being the prerogative of Parliament.
The Court of Chancery then became the means of administering the election process, but Parliament became the arbiter of disputes.
In 1868 Parliament handed its power to determine disputes to the common law courts.
It was described as being "what, according to British ideas, are normally the rights and privileges of the Assembly itself, always jealously maintained and guarded in complete independence of the Crown.
The power to determine electoral disputes was transferred to the courts in 1880 by the Election Petitions Act 1880.