Rotten borough

Rotten borough, decayed borough or pocket borough: a borough or consituency 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). The second problem: A large number of rotten boroughs made elections unrepresentative because a Member of Parliament who represented ten voters wielded the same influence as one who came from a borough with an electorate of, say, one thousand people.