264

LAWS OF MARYLAND.

CHAP. 182

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Mary-
land, That Section 153 of Article 33 of the Public General

Repeal and
re-enact.

Laws, title "Elections," sub-title "Primary Elections," as
repealed and re-enacted by Chapter 682 of the Acts of 1904,
be and the same is hereby repealed and re-enacted, so as to
read as follows :

153. Primary elections for Mayor, Comptroller, President
of the Second Branch City Council and member of the City

How primary
elections
shall be held

Council of Baltimore shall be held in all respects according
. to the foregoing provisions, except that the day for holding
the same shall be the first Tuesday of April of the year in
which the municipal elections in said city of Baltimore are to
be held. And at every general registration held in Baltimore
city subsequent to the passage of this Act there shall be pro-
vided in the registration books an additional column headed
"Party Affiliation," and the board of registers shall enter in
this column the name of the political party, if any, to which
the voter is inclined and with which the voter desires to have
himself recorded as affiliated. It shall be the duty of the
board of registry to explain to each voter that the statement
of such party affiliation does not bind him to vote for the
candidates of such party at any given election; also, that he
has the right to decline to state any party affiliation, but
that no one who is not recorded upon the registry as
affiliated with a particular political party will be qualified to
vote at subsequent primary elections of said political party.
Whenever a voter declines to state his party affiliation the

Party affilia-
tion.

word "Declined" shall be written opposite his name under
such column, so that there shall be written in such column
opposite the name of every registered voter either his party
affiliation or the word "Declined." And in all primary elec-
tions thereafter held any person so registered as affiliated
with a given political party shall have the right to receive and
vote the official ballot of that party, and of no other. And
at any intermediate registration subsequent to the close of
the next general registration such voter may appear before
the board of registry, and upon his identity being established
to the satisfaction of the majority of the board of registry
he shall have the right to require the said board of registry
to make, alter or strike out any entry in the column headed
" Party Affiliation " opposite his name in the registry. It
shall be the duty of the board of registry to enter in the