Commonwealth Numbered Acts

REFERENDUM (MACHINERY PROVISIONS) ACT 1984 No. 44, 1984 - SECT 48

48. (1) Where a hospital is a polling place, the presiding officer may make
arrangements with an appropriate person, or appropriate persons, on the staff
of the hospital for the votes of patients in the hospital or in part of the
hospital to be taken under this section at a referendum.

(2) Subject to section 50, where-

   (a)  arrangements are in force under sub-section (1) in relation to a
        hospital or part of a hospital;

   (b)  a patient in the hospital or the part of the hospital, as the case may
        be, is an elector for the State or Territory in which the hospital is
        situated;

   (c)  under the arrangements, the vote of the patient may be taken under
        this section; and

   (d)  the patient wishes so to vote, the presiding officer, accompanied by a
        poll clerk and such scrutineers appointed under section 27, if any, as
        wish to accompany him, shall, at a time between 8 o'clock in the
        morning and 6 o'clock in the afternoon on either voting day or a day
        to which the voting at the referendum is adjourned, take to the
        patient a ballot-box, a ballot-paper and such other things as are
        necessary to enable the vote of the patient to be taken, and this Act
        applies in relation to the taking of the vote of the patient as if,
        during the time when, for the purpose of enabling the vote of the
        patient to be taken, the presiding officer is in the same room, ward
        or other place as the patient, that room, ward or other place were a
        part of a polling booth at a polling place.

(3) A polling booth provided at a hospital shall be attended by an officer at
all times when the presiding officer is absent from the booth for the purpose
of enabling a patient in the hospital to vote under this section.