1020 ELECTIONS. [ART. 33

to have abandoned such declared intention, and shall thereupon
become disqualified to vote in this State, and the officers of
registration shall refuse to register them as qualified voters, or
shall strike off their names from the registry if their names be
entered thereon. The clerk before whom such affidavit shall
be made shall retain, index and record the same, and shall be
entitled to demand and receive for each affidavit sworn the
sum of thirty cents, and for indexing and recording the affida-
vit and acknowledgment thereto the same compensation as
allowed by law for indexing and recording deeds; such costs
to be paid to said clerks by the county commissioners and
mayor and city council of Baltimore, respectively. Such affi-
davits shall not be admissible in evidence as evidence of the
right of the persons making the same to registration unless
they are recorded within five days from the date of the
acknowledgements thereto, and a duly certified copy thereof
shall be receivable in evidence in the same manner as a certified
copy of a deed. False swearing in any of such affidavits shall
be deemed to be perjury, and shall be punishable as perjury is
punishable by the code of public general laws, article twenty-
seven, title "Crimes and Punishments," sub-title "Perjury."
Said officers of registration shall require the production of
such affidavits, duly recorded, or a duly certified copy thereof
in all cases where they shall have reason to suspect that the
person applying to be registered as a qualified voter has lost
his residence by reason of his removal from the State as here-
inbefore mentioned; and they may also in such cases put any
question which they may deem proper to such applicant con-
cerning the place where he dwelt in the county or legislative
district before such removal out of the State, his occupation,
before such removal and since the time when he so removed,
and when he returned, and all other pertinent facts and circum-
stances touching the right of such person to be registered, and
they may require the truth of the answers of all persons to
such questions to be corroborated by independent evidence if
in their discretion they shall think proper, and if in answer
to their questions or upon testimony produced before them, it
shall appear to their satisfaction that the person applying to
be registered had left the State without any intention of return-
ing or with the intention of returning at some indefinite time
in the future, he shall not be entitled to be registered as a legal
voter; provided, however, that this section shall not apply to
United States senators and representatives in congress from
Maryland. Any officer of registration who shall fail or refuse