The qualification for the vote before 1832, unusually for a borough, was the possession of a 40 shilling freehold which was the normal franchise for a county constituency.
The Returning Officer on the ground that nearly all the 87 were bribed declared Mr. Purling elected, but Mr. Rumbold was seated on petition.
The evidence given by the Returning Officer, Mr. Hugh Roberts, before the Committee, was the means of bringing to light a most singular system of wholesale bribery, carried on by a body of Electors, who styled themselves, the "Christian Society", and who had for some time being in the habit of selling seats to the highest bidders.
The six rapes each consisted of a strip of territory from the northern border of the county to its southern coast, so the area involved was considerably larger than that of the normal parliamentary borough.
The twentieth century parliamentary historian Lewis Namier said that "New Shoreham was the first borough to be disenfranchised for corruption".