Page:A History of the Australian Ballot System in the United States.djvu/67

54 they were registered by 1904. North Carolina in the New Hanover County act grants assistance to voters registered under the “Grandfather Clause” or those physically disabled.

The case in favor of disabled voters is much stronger, although the argument that you may make it possible to know how an elector votes, and so open the door to fraud, applies as well to disabled persons as it does to illiterates. It is true that a disabled person can exercise an intelligent choice, and so he should not be disfranchised. In every state disabled voters are allowed to be assisted. The question might be raised as to what constitutes a physical disability sufficient to entitle a man to assistance. Most of the states are silent on this point. Five states provide that intoxication is not such a physical disability. Alabama limits physical disability to blindness or loss of the use of the hands; Ohio, to blindness, paralysis, extreme old age, or other physical infirmity. In most states it is a question of fact to be decided in the first instance by the election judges.

The majority of states require such illiterate or disabled voter to be placed under oath before he is given assistance. Eight states place the administering of an oath at the discretion of the election officer. Thirteen states make no provision for swearing the elector desiring help. This assistance should in every case be given by sworn officers, and this is the rule. In Minnesota, Nevada, and Pennsylvania an elector instead of an officer marks the ballots. In Minnesota and Nevada the number of ballots one elector may mark for another is limited to three and one, respectively, but in Pennsylvania there is no limit to the number one man may prepare.

Before the voter leaves the booth or compartment where he prepares his ballot he is required to fold it so as to conceal its face, and in Delaware he is required to fold it and place it in an envelope. This is the only state that now retains the use of the envelope. The ballot must be so