Rotten borough

A borough or constituency with so small a number of voters that the result of any election could easily be controlled by a patron, e.g., a local aristocrat (who could "pocket" the borough). In addition to the possibility for corruption and patronage, a large number of rotten boroughs made elections unrepresentative because a Member of Parliament who represented ten voters from a rotten borough wielded the same influence as one who came from a borough with an electorate of, say, one thousand people.