ELIHU E. JACKSON, ESQUIRE, GOVERNOR.

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he does not intend thereby to change his residence, but that he

has a fixed and definite purpose to return to this State on or before

six months preceding the next succeeding election in November;

acknowledged before me — (signature of clerk, seal of court;") and

if the persons making such affidavits shall fail so to return and

take up their actual abode, domicile, dwelling-place and habita-

tion in this State on or before six months next preceding such

November election, they shall be conclusively presumed 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 acknowledgment the sum of thirty cents, and for

indexing and recording the affidavits and acknowledgments thereto,

the same compensation as is allowed by law for indexing and re-

cording deeds, such costs to be paid to said clerks by the county

commissioners and mayor and city council of Baltimore respec-

tively; such affidavits shall not be admissible in evidence as

evidence of the right of the persons making the same to registra-

tion, unless they are recorded within five days from the date of

the acknowledgment 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 by
the Code of Public General Laws, article twenty-seven, title

False
swearing,
how pun-

"Crimes and Punishments," sub-title "Perjury ;" said officers of

ished.

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 regis-

tered as a qualified voter has lost his residence by reason of his

removal from the State as hereinbefore mentioned, and they may

also in such cases put any question which they may deem proper

to such applicant, concerning 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 circumstances touching the right of such person to be regis-

tered, and they may require the truth of the answers of all per-

sons 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 regis-

tered had left the State without any intention of returning, 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.

16. The officers of registration appointed for any precinct of