The effect of the act was to transfer responsibility for trying election petitions from the House of Commons to the judges of the High Court of Justice.

The act was designed to, and did, provide a more effective measure for preventing corruption and fraud in parliamentary elections.

In his PhD thesis, Cornelius O'Leary described The Times as having reported "the testimony is unanimous that in the General Election of 1865 there was more profuse and corrupt expenditure than was ever known before".

[4]: 27–28  When he came into office in 1867, Benjamin Disraeli announced that he would introduce a new method for election petition trials (which were then determined by a committee of the House of Commons).

Disraeli proposed that this take the form of two assessors visiting the constituency and determining the outcome, with an appeal to the House of Commons which could appoint a select committee should it decide to take the matter up.