The Chief Electoral Officer has forwarded the following memorandum for advice:

It has been brought under notice by the Divisional Returning Officer for Ballarat that a patient of the Hospital for Insane at Ballarat who has been 'boarded out' by the authorities has become enrolled on the Electoral Roll for that Division pursuant to a claim wherein the claimant states 'I am qualified to be enrolled as an elector'.

Section 39 (4) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act provides:

No person who is of unsound mind . . . shall be entitled to have his name placed on or retained on any roll or to vote at any Senate election or House of

Representatives election.

In view of this provision, it is proposed to remove from the Roll and from the certified list to be used at the polling at the forthcoming election the name of the above-mentioned patient if the Superintendent of the Hospital for Insane certifies that at the present time the said patient is a lunatic, and if he claims to vote on polling day to permit him to vote pursuant to section 121 of the Act and at the scrutiny to reserve, for full consideration, the admission or rejection of the ballot-paper.

I shall be pleased to be advised whether there is any legal objection to the proposed course of action.

Section 39 (4), set forth in the memorandum of the Chief Electoral Officer, declares that a person of unsound mind shall not be entitled to have his name placed on or retained on any Roll or to vote. Section 47 confers on the Registrar certain powers of alteration of the Rolls but provides that those powers are additional to other powers of alteration conferred by the Act.

In my opinion, section 39 (4) confers power to alter the Roll by striking out the name of a person who is of unsound mind. Before, however, the Registrar proceeds to act under this section, he should satisfy himself that the person is in fact of unsound mind. A certificate of the Medical Superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane to which the person was committed, that he is now of unsound mind would, in my opinion, be sufficient evidence upon which the Registrar may act.

In such a case, however, the elector should, if he claims to do so, be allowed to vote under section 121 of the Act-when his right to vote can be fully investigated.

[Vol. 16, p. 497]