77Mobile polling booths — hospitals

77  Mobile polling booths — hospitals

 (1) The Electoral Commissioner may, by notice published in the Gazette, declare the whole or a specified part of a hospital, to be a special hospital for the purposes of taking votes under this rule in a specified election.

 (2) A Returning Officer may appoint electoral visitors and liaison officers for the purposes of this rule. 

 (3) An electoral visitor may make arrangements with an appropriate person, or appropriate persons, on the staff of a hospital (being a hospital the whole or part of which is a special hospital) for the votes of patients in the special hospital to be taken under this rule.

 (4) Subject to rule subrule (6) and rule 78, where:

 (a) arrangements are in force under subrule (3) in relation to a special hospital; and

 (b) a patient in the special hospital is a voter; and

 (c) under the arrangements, the vote of the patient may be taken under this rule; and

 (d) the patient wishes so to vote;

an electoral visitor, accompanied by a liaison officer, a polling official and such scrutineers, if any, as wish to accompany him or her, must take to the patient a ballot‑box, a ballot‑paper and such other things as are necessary to enable the vote of the patient to be taken.

 (5) These Rules apply in relation to the taking of the vote of the patient as if, during the time when, for the purpose of enabling the vote of the patient to be taken, the electoral visitor is in the same room, ward or other place as the patient, that room, ward or other place were a part of a polling booth at a polling place.

 (6) A visit or visits to a special hospital in accordance with subrule (4) must be made at such time or times between 8.00am and 6.00pm and on such day or days, being any of the 5 days preceding polling day, polling day, or a day to which the polling is adjourned, as are determined by the Returning Officer in relation to the special hospital.

 (7) At any time when an electoral visitor is visiting a special hospital for the purposes of this rule, the special hospital is, for the purposes of, and in connection with, the taking of votes under this rule, deemed to be a polling booth at a polling place and the electoral visitor is, for those purposes, deemed to be the presiding officer at that booth.

 (8) Paragraph 74 (1) (a) does not apply to an electoral visitor after the first visit made by him or her for the purposes of this rule.

 (9) At the end of the last visit made by an electoral visitor for this rule, he or she must, as soon as practicable and in the presence of a polling official and any scrutineers who may be in attendance:

 (a) if the Returning Officer has directed the electoral visitor to do so: