The Parliamentary Elections Act 1868 transferred the jurisdiction for considering petitions from the House of Commons to the law courts.
The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883 substantially altered and strengthened the law in respect of election offences.
The current governing law is the Representation of the People Act 1983.
[1] The following table lists all those petitions which subsequently came to trial.
There are four possible outcomes of a petition trial, named as follows and also denoted by the colour of the corresponding row.