Section 4.For the purpose of voting and eligibility to office, no person shall be deemed to have gained a residence by reason of his presence, or lost it by reason of his absence, while in the civil or military service of the State, or of the United States, nor while a student at any institution of learning, nor while kept at public expense in any poor house or other asylum, nor while confined in public prison.
Section 5.Voters shall in all cases, except treason, felony or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at elections, and in going to and returning therefrom.
Section 6.No person except a qualified elector shall be elected or appointed to any civil or military office in the State.
Section 7.The general election shall be held on the first Tuesday of October, in the years of our of our Lord eighteen hundred and seventy-six, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven and eighteen hundred and seventy-eight, and annually thereafter on such day as may be prescribed by law.
Section 8.All elections by the people shall be by ballot; every ballot voted shall be numbered in the order in which it shall be received, and the number be recorded by the election officers on the list of voters opposite the name of the voter who presents the ballot. The election officers shall be sworn or affirmed not to inquire or disclose how an elector shall have voted. In all cases of contested elections, the ballots cast may be counted, compared with the list of voters, and examined under such safeguards and regulations as may be prescribed by law.
Section 9.In trials of contested elections, and for offenses arising under the election law, no person shall be permitted to withhold his testimony on the ground that it may criminate himself, or subject him to public infamy; but such testimony shall not be used against him in any judicial proceeding, except for perjury in giving such testimony.
Section 10.No person while confined in any public prison shall be entitled to vote; but every such person who was a qualified elector prior to such imprisonment, and who is released therefrom by virtue of a pardon, or by virtue of having served out his full term of imprisonment, shall, without further action, be invested with all the rights of citizenship; except as otherwise provided in this Constitution.
Section 11.The General Assembly shall pass laws to secure the purity of elections, and guard against abuses of the elective franchise.
Section 12.The General Assembly shall, by general law, designate the courts and judges by whom the several classes of election contests, not herein provided for, shall be tried, and regulate the manner of trial, and all matters incident thereto, but no such law shall apply to any contest arising out of an election held before its passage.
