- (1) Where the returning officer for any university constituency receives from a person registered aS an elector for that constituency an application for a voting paper to be sent to him for the purpose of voting by post and the application is accompanied either—
and the said declaration purports to be signed by, or the said certificate or certificates purport to relate to, the person making the application, then, notwithstanding anything in the Act of 1918, that person shall be entitled at any general election to which this Part of this Act applies to have a voting paper sent to him at the address given in the application.
- (a) by a declaration in the same form and attested in the same manner and giving the same particulars as a service declaration, except that it shall give particulars of the university constituency instead of particulars of the place at which the declarant is or would be residing; or
285 - (b) such a certificate as is referred to in Sub-section (2) of Section eleven of the Act of 1943 (which relates to persons registered in the National Register as engaged on war work abroad); or
- (c) such certificates as are referred to in Sub-section (2) of Section three of this Act;
- (2) No person shall be entitled to make an application for a voting paper to be sent under the foregoing Sub-section while he is outside the postal voting areas or to apply for a voting paper to be sent outside those areas under that Sub-section:
- Provided that no such application shall be invalidated by reason of any contravention of this Sub-section but the returning officer shall not be obliged to send a voting paper in pursuance of such an application, if the address given is known to him to be outside the postal voting areas.
- (3) Any application for a voting paper to be so sent may be superseded by a fresh application giving a new address and accompanied by the appropriate declaration, certificate or certificates, or may be cancelled by notice to the returning officer, but subject to the foregoing provisions of this Sub-section any such application shall continue in force for the purpose of any general election to which this Part of this Act applies.
- (4) Any such application or notice shall be disregarded for the purpose of any election unless received by the returning officer four clear days at least before the day fixed for nomination.
- (5) A person shall not be entitled to vote in person at any election at which he is entitled to have a voting paper sent to him under Sub-section (1) of this Section.
- (6) The making of such an application by any person shall not prevent or invalidate the appointment of a proxy to vote on his behalf or the casting of a vote by his proxy at any election, but if at a general election to which this Part of this Act applies a voting paper is duly returned by him so as to be received by the returning officer before the day on which the counting of the votes is to begin, any vote cast by the proxy on his behalf shall be void.
- (7) Electoral registration regulations shall make provision for giving effect to the last foregoing Sub-section, and shall for that purpose in particular provide—
- (a) for marking, on any copy of the register to be used at any general election to which this Part of this Act applies for checking voting papers before they are counted, the name of any person entitled to have a voting paper sent to him under Sub-section (1) of this Section at that election;
- (b) for rejecting any vote cast on his behalf by his proxy at that election if it is found when the voting papers are checked
286 that he himself has returned a voting paper with the declarations thereon duly filled in; - (c) for any other matters which appear to the Secretary of State to be incidental to or consequential on the foregoing provisions of this Sub-section, including such amendments of the Fifth Schedule to the Act of 1918 and any other enactment (including any Order in Council made under that Act) as appear to him to be necessary for carrying those provisions into effect.
- (8) In the application of this Section to the combined Scottish University constituency any reference to the returning officer shall be construed, in relation to any elector, as a reference to the registrar of the University in the register for which that elector is registered.—[Mr. H. Morrison.]
§ Brought up, and read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.