Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Candidate Helena Torry (photo: Renee Slater)
Police in Scotland have arrested a 63-year-old woman for entering a mannequin as a city council candidate in Aberdeen.
Renee Slater was charged under a 1983 law, the Representation of the People Act, for trying to pass off the dummy, named Helena Torry, as a person.
Slater said she never claimed Torry was an actual person and, thus, did not violate the law.
“There’s a long history of lampooning in British elections,” Slater told The Scottish Sun. “There’s no reason for them to stop her [Torry] from running as a candidate.”
Torry, who was running in the Hazlehead, Ashley and Queen’s Cross ward as “The Voice of the Silent Majority,” also was taken into custody, and her name removed from the election ballot.
Torry’s supporters claimed that she was a “model candidate” and that dummies often run for office.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Dummy Runs (by Stuart Patterson, Scottish Sun)
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