Page:Messages of the President of the United States on the Relations of the United States to Spain (1898).djvu/93

 64 The following persons shall be liable to the penalties provided in article 25, unless more serious ones are imposed by the penal code:

(1) Those who, by means of a promise, present, or remuneration, solicit, directly or indirectly, the vote of any elector in favor of or against any candidate.

(2) Those who incite voters to intoxication in order to obtain or secure their adhesion

(3) Any person who votes twice or more times at an election, who takes another name in order to vote, or who votes when incapacitated or when his exercise of such right is suspended.

(4) Whoever knowingly consents, without a protest, when he might make one, to the casting of a vote in the cases mentioned in the foregoing number.

(5) Whoever prevents or delays the admission, attention to and decision concerning protests or complaints of voters, or who does not afford protection to those who make them.

(6) Whoever omits the announcements and notifications required by law, or who does not issue or cause to be issued, as speedily as the law directs, a certificate of election when application is made therefor.

(7) Whoever in any other, not provided for in this law, impedes or molests an elector in the exercise of his rights or the performance of his duty.

(8) Whoever maliciously raises or maintains, without good reason, doubts in egard to the identity of a person or the legality of his rights.

Public officers who cause a voter to leave his domicile or residence, or remain away from the same, even under pretext of the requirements of the public service, on the day of the election, or on a day in which he may be able and may desire to vote; or those who detain him, depriving him in similar case of his liberty, shall be liable, besides the penalties mentioned in the second paragraph of article 210 and in article 221 of the penal code, respectively, to the penalty of absolute, permanent disqualification.

Those who impede or hinder the free entrance and exit of the voters to and from the place in which they are to exercise their right, their approach to the voting tables, the presence of notaries, candidates, or electors in the places in which the election is to take place, in such a way as to render it impossible or difficult for them to perform their duties or exercise their right, and to verify the regularity of such elections, shall be liable, if they are public officers, to the penalty of imprisonment in its minimum degree and to a fine of 500 to 2,500 pesetas; and if they are private individuals, to the penalty of imprisonment in its minimum degree, unless other and more severe penalties are provided by the penal code, in which case the latter penalties shall be enforced.

Public officers who do not deliver or who maliciously delay the delivery of documents requested by special commissioners shall be punished as being guilty of the misdemeanor of serious disobedience to the authorities, without prejudice to the disciplinary responsibility which they incur at the same time.

Offenses provided for in the penal code, which are connected with matters relating to elections, shall be punished when the special provisions of the preceding articles are not applicable, with the penalties provided by the same code, and also with a fine of from 125 to 1,250 pesetas, in case a penalty of this class is not applicable to them.

The following penalties shall apply to all the offenses directly connected with the provisions of this law, whether they are provided by this or by another law: That of special disqualification, temporary or permanent, for the right of suffrage, if the guilty person is a public officer, and that of suspension from the same right if he is a private individual.

In the case of the repetition of an offense of this class the disqualification for public officers shall be absolute for all time, and for private individuals shall be absolute for a temporary period, in addition to the penalties provided.

Any failure to fulfill the obligations and formalities which this law or the provisions that shall be adopted for its execution impose upon all persons who take part in an official capacity in electoral proceedings shall be punished by a fine of from 25 to 1,000 pesetas, in case it does not constitute a crime.

Officers who, for any reason that can not be shown to be one rendering it absolutely impossible for them to do so, shall fail to perform any of the duties made incumbent upon them by this law or the regulations for its execution shall be required to pay the fine for which provision is made above, the imposition of which shall be ordered by the census board before which the duty should have been performed, due regard being had to the provisions of article 42.

The president of the provisional and municipal boards shall incur the same responsibility if, when they should receive one of the documents provided for in any of the