Page:Messages of the President of the United States on the Relations of the United States to Spain (1898).djvu/91

 62 Spaniards having the qualifications required for deputies to the Cortes, and who are natives of the province, or who have resided four years consecutively in the province, may be provincial deputies,

Those electors may be elected members of ayuntamientos (councilmen) in municipal districts containing not more than 100 inhabitants, who, in addition to having resided at least four years in the municipality, pay a direct tax included in the first two-thirds of the local lists of persons paying a land tax, and an industrial and commercial subsidy, and in municipal districts containing less than 1,000 and more than 400 inhabitants, those paying taxes included in the first four-fifths of the said lists. In municipal districts containing not more than 400 inhabitants all the electors shall be eligible.

All those paying a tax equal to the lowest tax required to be paid in each municipal district in order to be eligible under the preceding paragraph shall likewise be included in the number of eligibles.

Those residents who pay any assessment of tax and furnish proof by means of official documents of their professional or academic character shall likewise be eligible.

Those persons who furnish proof that they are subjected to a rebate (reduction) in the incomes which they derive from general, provincial, or municipal funds shall likewise be eligible, provided the amount of the rebate is included in the qualification (proporcion) previously fixed for eligibles in towns of 1,000 and 400 inhabitants, respectively.

The assessment (tax) shall be calculated by adding together the taxes paid by the taxpayers, in and outside of the town, as a direct tax and for municipal taxes (charges). In calculating the taxes of the electors and the eligibles the following property shall be considered as theirs: In the case of husbands, the property of their wives, so long as the conjugal relationship exists; in the case of fathers, such property of their children as they administer legally; in the case of sons, their own property, the usufruct of which they do not enjoy for any reason.

Those persons who are included in any of the cases of disability or incompatibility established by the respective laws can not be elected to any of the offices mentioned in the three preceding articles.

Those persons designated in article 25 of the electoral law of the peninsula relating to senators shall be electors of counselors of administration. The provisions of chapter 4 of that law shall be applied to the drawing up of the lists of electors and to the election of the counselors of administration in the manner prescribed by the regulations.

In the districts in which one representative, one provincial deputy, or one councilman (concejal) is to be elected no elector can legally give his vote to more than one person; when more than one, up to four, are to be elected, each elector shall have the right to vote for one less than the number of those who are to be elected in his own district; for two less (than the number of those who are to be elected) if more than four are to be elected, and for three less when more than eight are to be elected.

The other provisions relative to electoral procedure shall be such as are enacted in the respective organic laws and in the regulations.

Any forgery of documents relating to the provisions of this law, in any of the ways mentioned in article 310 of the penal code of Cuba and Porto Rico, shall constitute the crime of forgery in electorial matters, which shall be punished with the penalties provided in the said article, or in the following article, according to the status of the persons who are responsible.

Any intentional omission in the documents referred to in the preceding paragraph which may affect the result of the election shall constitute a similar offense, and shall be punished with the same penalties.

The courts shall, neverthelesss, lessen the penalties one or two degrees, imposing them upon such person as they may think proper, according to the special circumstances of the case, the scandal or alarm that 1t has occasioned, and whenever there shall appear to be no connection with other offenses made punishable by the code.

For the purposes of this law, the census and authorized copies thereof, records, lists, certificates, and whatever may emanate from the person who is intrusted by law with the execution thereof, the object of which is to facilitate or insure the exercise of the electoral right or its result, or to guarantee the regularity of the procedure, shall be considered official documents.

The penalties of imprisonment and of a fine of from 500 to 5,000 pesetas, when the general provisions of the penal code do not fix a higher penalty, shall be