On 5 January 2009 he, and a Jersey Democratic Alliance colleague in the same constituency (Shona Pitman), were charged with breaching Article 39A of the Public Elections (Jersey) Law 2002, which prohibits a candidate or representative from interfering with a person's application for registration to vote, during the November 2008 election. Southern had opposed the introduction of this law when it was debated in the States assembly in 2008, saying that he would "continue to assist people who ask me to help them fill in the form … I am among those who may well be prosecuted under the bureaucratic nonsense of a piece of law". On 20 February 2009, Southern pleaded guilty in Magistrate's Court to breaking the law "by assisting about 70 elderly, infirm or busy people to complete a postal vote application form in the election and/or delivering their completed forms" and he was committed to the Royal Court for sentencing. In mitigation his advocate submitted that the law infringed the human rights of the disabled and infirm to take part in the electoral process and the debate on Article 39A in the States had been flawed. Southern was sentenced to a fine of £10,000 (or twenty weeks' imprisonment in default).