On Thursday week the House of Commons passed the clause
of the Franchise Bill which will legalize proxy voting at a General Election. Sailors and fishermen at sea and soldiers serving on stations so far distant that their postal votes would take more than eight days to reach this country will be entitled to nominate proxies who may vote for them. No person save a parent, brother, or sister may act as proxy for more than two of the absent voters,
so that the possibility of election agents collecting and manipulating hundreds of votes is excluded. The Government will determine the military areas to which the proxy scheme will apply. Proxy papers will be sent to these areas and distributed through the military authority acting as a registration officer. The experiment will terminate a year after the war ends, unless the House decides otherwise on the Report stage of the Bill. It may be hoped that the vast majority of the men on active service will be enabled to record their own votes by post.
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