Commonwealth Numbered Acts

REFERENDUM (MACHINERY PROVISIONS) ACT 1984 No. 44, 1984 - SECT 49

49. (1) The Electoral Commission may, by notice published in the Gazette,
declare the whole or a specified part of a hospital, not being a hospital that
is a polling place, to be a special hospital for the purposes of taking votes
under this section at a referendum.

(2) The Electoral Commission may appoint electoral visitors for the purposes
of this section.

(3) An electoral visitor may make arrangements with an appropriate person, or
appropriate persons, on the staff of a hospital (being a hospital the whole or
part of which is a special hospital) for the votes of patients in the
special hospital to be taken under this section.

(4) Subject to section 50, where-

   (a)  arrangements are in force under sub-section (3) in relation to a
        special hospital;

   (b)  a patient in the special hospital 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, an electoral visitor, accompanied by a
        poll clerk and such scrutineers appointed under section 27, if any, as
        wish to accompany him, shall, subject to sub-section (5), 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 electoral visitor 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.

(5) A visit or visits to a special hospital in accordance with sub-section (4)
shall be made at such time or times between 8 o'clock in the morning and 6
o'clock in the afternoon, and on such day or days, being any of the 5 days
preceding voting day, voting day, or a day to which the voting is adjourned,
as are determined by the Electoral Commission in relation to the special
hospital.

(6) At any time when an electoral visitor is visiting a special hospital for
the purposes of this section, the special hospital shall, for the purposes of,
and in connection with, the taking of votes under this section, be deemed to
be a polling booth at a polling place and the electoral visitor shall, for
those purposes, be deemed to be the presiding officer at that booth.

(7) Paragraph 29 (1) (a) does not apply to an electoral visitor after the
first visit made by him for the purposes of this section.

(8) At the end of the last visit made by an electoral visitor for the purposes
of this section, he shall, in the presence of a poll clerk and any scrutineers
appointed under section 27 who may be in attendance, publicly close, fasten,
seal and take charge of each ballot-box used by him for the purposes of this
section and, with the least possible delay, forward it for the purposes of
scrutiny to the appropriate Assistant Returning Officer designated for the
purposes of this sub-section by the Divisional Returning Officer.