Commonwealth Consolidated Acts

REFERENDUM (MACHINERY PROVISIONS) ACT 1984 - SECT 49

             (1)  The Electoral Commission may, by notice published in the Gazette , at any time, 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 this section.

             (2)  The Electoral Commission may appoint electoral visitors in relation to a specified referendum.

             (3)  Where:

                     (a)  a patient at a special hospital wishes to vote at the hospital; and

                     (b)  the patient is an elector for the State or Territory in which the hospital is situated;

an electoral visitor shall visit the patient for the purpose of taking the patient's vote.

             (4)  When visiting the patient, the electoral visitor shall:

                     (a)  take to the patient a ballot‑box, a ballot‑paper, and anything else necessary to enable the patient to vote; and

                     (b)  be accompanied by a polling official and such scrutineers (if any) as wish to attend.

          (4A)  While the electoral visitor is in the same room, ward or other place as the patient, this Act applies in relation to the taking of the patient's vote as if the room, ward or place were part of a polling booth at a polling place.

             (5)  A visit or visits to a special hospital 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 the visitor 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, the visitor shall, in the presence of a polling official 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 the visitor 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 subsection by the Divisional Returning Officer.