S. XXXIV.

S. LVIII.

Three interro

put by officer

to voter and

on other questions.

with a convenient place in each for taking the poll, to be settled by the Boundary Act.*

The 34th Section provides specially for saving the rights of voting in those places in respect of freeholds giving qualifications at the time of passing the Act, subjecting them to registration, and registration to condition of residence within seven miles of the boroughs, and insertion in the lists of voters to be made by particular overseers with reference to the boroughs of Horsham and Malmesbury and the Boundary Act.

SECT. 5.

Polling (generally)—Oaths under Reform Act and other Statutes to be administered to Electors.

The returning-officer (if required on the part of gatories to be a candidate) or his deputy must put to the party tendering his vote and at the time of the tender, the three single questions, the tenor and form of which are prescribed by the 58th Section (and those only), as to identity of person, singleness of vote, and continued retainer of the registered qualification.

Effect of

voters' answers.

A false answer to these questions, though not on oath, is made an indictable misdemeanor.

If the officer be required, he may exact the deposition of the elector so voting to the three questions put to him: and he [or a commissioner] is for that purpose authorised by the statute (Section 73) to administer an oath or affirmation to the voter.

The sheriff (&c.) cannot now put any other than

See Act, Sect. 32, Sched. N. 2.

the three prescribed questions to the voter; and his vote must be taken and entered, if he answer the first and third questions in the affirmative and the second in the negative.

be taken:

supremacy,

That section confines the prohibition from putting Test oaths to the voter on his oath to the questions which are the allegiance, subject of it, that is, as to the right of voting, but it abjuration. does not dispense with the necessity of administering the usual political test oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, or the oath substituted for those in the persons of Roman Catholic electors, by 10 G. 4, c. 7, s. 2, 5. These are therefore still to be taken and subscribed by the elector, if it shall be required of him, or his vote will not be taken. The oath of abjuration may be insisted on, not only by a candidate, but by any person present, 6 G. 3, c. 53, s. 1.

bribery and

and second

The oath negativing bribery and corruption, and Oath against previous poll at the election, is, by the 2 G. 2, c. 24, corruption, s. 1, required to be taken by persons coming to vote, polling. before they are admitted to poll, if demanded by a candidate, or any two electors. This oath (43 G. 3, c. 74) must be administered by the officers presiding [at] or taking the poll (the returning officer); and no person is to be admitted to poll till he has taken this oath (if demanded) in a public manner before the returning officer.

sioners to ad

to be appoint

By the 34 G. 3, c. 73, to prevent delays at elec- Commistions, the returning officers [and by 2 W. 4, c. 45, minister oaths s. 73, their deputies] are required, after poll demanded, and before further proceedings, at the written request of any candidate, under his hand, to

ed by return

ing officer.

No scrutiny

at time of election.

appoint two or more persons (as commissioners) to administer the above oaths of allegiance, supremacy, the declaration of fidelity, the oath of abjuration, and declaration of effect thereof, and the substituted oath; and they are to certify the names of electors having taken and subscribed those oaths, &c. They are also themselves required to be sworn.

All these oaths, except that denying bribery, &c., which must be taken before the returning officer at the poll, may be administered by and taken and subscribed before the substituted commissioners, at any other appointed place during the progress of the election.

These ceremonies with the administering, as heretofore, the oath against bribery, form the whole of the proceedings now necessary for the polling of voters.

Scrutiny at the time of polling is no longer allowed [Section 58], and the officer (and candidate) at the time are concluded by the register on the tender of suffrage, with the positive answers returned to the preliminary questions, by the party claiming a right to vote.

A result of great importance and advantage arising out of these salutary alterations in the course of election business, by the anticipation of the primá facie investigation and adjudication of qualification and right of voting by the court of revisal, and the consequent obviation of interruption by unreasonable and intemperate scrutiny pending the heat and excitement of a contested election is, that the legislature has been enabled to limit the period of poll

ing to the hour of four in the afternoon of the second day after the commencement of the poll; one of the most important and beneficial changes in the practice of election proceedings effected by this efficient Bill, conferring a signal benefit on the public by the preservation of the peace, causing a saving of expense to all parties, and conducing to order and accommodation without detracting from openness and publicity in a proceeding of such great public interest.

of time of

15 days to 15

3. 62.

This curtailment of the period of polling-once Abridgment a degrading and disgraceful scene of continued riot, polling from drunkenness, tumult, and outrage-from fifteen hours by days to fifteen hours (during the early part of two successive days,) is effected by the 62d Section of the Act, whereby it is provided that such polling shall continue for two days only, allowing seven hours for the first day, and eight for the second day, the poll to be closed by four o'clock of the afternoon of second day; or it may still be closed before that time.

Giving and redelivering the

At the close of each day's poll the poll clerks must publicly render up their poll books, inclosed and sealed, to the sheriff, or his deputy presiding at on each day

poll books

of the polling,

the poll, taking his receipt. At the commencement s. 65.
of the second day's poll the books must be redelivered
to the person from whom they were so received.

SECTION 6.

Adjourning the Poll in case of violent Obstruction of Proceedings.

The returning officer or his deputy is authorized s. LXX. to close the poll before the time for closing fixed

S. LXVIII. Final close of poll.

Declaring

by the act, where he might, before the statute, have lawfully closed the poll; but it is expressly declared that he shall not close it finally by reason of interruption or obstruction by riot or open violence. In such case he is required to adjourn the poll from day to day or from time to time, giving, if a deputy, to the returning officer, due notice of each adjournment, till the cause of adjournment is at an end, and then he must proceed.

SECTION 7.

Final Close of Poll, Declaring State of Poll, and
Proclaiming Members chosen.

On the final close of the poll, the returning officer may at once declare the state of the poll [S. 68] and make his return, if he will; or he may not; but if he do not, the deputies, having received the poll books from the poll clerks, must deliver or transmit them, still so inclosed and sealed as before, to the returning officers.

The returning officer is to receive and keep them ing members in his custody till the next day, or that being Sun

and proclaim

chosen.

day, till Monday. He is then openly to break the seals, cast up the books of votes, and declare the state of the poll, and proclaim the elected candidates before two o'clock in the afternoon.

That official act terminates the proceedings at the election.

The sheriff or returning officer thereupon makes his RETURN to the writ of the result of the POLL.