CHAP. VI] THE LOWER HOUSES 
rh 
0 5. ELECTORAL MATTERS 
It is not necessary to give details relating to electoral, 
registration, and similar matters. They are regulated in 
all cases by local legislation, and the provisions, while 
agreeing in substance, differ very widely in detail, and vary 
from time to time.! The issue of writs for a general election 
rests with the Governor, in other cases with the President 
or Speaker of the House concerned. 
Voting by ballot is a general principle, but it is qualified 
to the extent that postal voting has been introduced and to 
some extent maintained in some of the Colonies. In the 
case of Queensland the postal vote caused a great deal of 
difficulty, and was one of the reasons for the political crisis 
of 1907. It was then held that the postal vote gave undue 
facilities for bringing pressure to bear upon voters, and that 
its abolition was desirable, and it was much modified in 
Act of 1908 No. 5, being replaced by an absent vote. It has 
also been proposed to abolish the postal vote in Victoria, 
but it is still retained for both Houses in Act No. 2288, 
8. 88, and it exists in the Commonwealth, Tasmania, and 
Western Australia, and as an absent vote in South Australia, 
and such a vote is proposed for New South Wales. 
Elaborate provision exists in all the Dominions and States 
with regard to electoral corruption. In all cases in Canada 
and Newfoundland the Courts decide election petitions, not 
the Parliaments, and it has been held that in cases of 
jurisdiction in electoral matters? the Privy Council will 
! The facts are set out as they stood in 1906 in Parl. Pap., Cd. 3919. 
See since then the Electoral Code, 1908 (No. 971), of South Australia, the 
Victoria Act No. 2288, the Electoral Act, 1907 (No. 27), of Western Australia, 
the Electoral Acts, 1906 (No. 41) and 1910 (No. 18), of New South Wales, the 
Queensland Acts (5 Edw. VIL No. 1 and 8 Edw. VIL No. 5), Tasmania Act 
(7 Edw. VII. No. 6), the Ontario Act 1908, c. 3, the Alberta Act 1909, c. 3, the 
Saskatchewan Act 1908, c. 2, and the Western Australia Act No. 44 of 1911, 
 Théberge v. Laudry, 2 App. Cas. 102, as explained in Cushing v. Dupuy, 
5 App. Cas. 409, at p. 419. Followed by the Commonwealth High Court 
in Holmes v. Angwin, (1906) 4 C. L. R. 297; and cf. Parkin v. James, 
2 C. L. R. 815, at p. 333. See also Valin v. Langlois, 5 App. Cas. 115; 
Kennedy v. Purcell, 14 S. C. R. 488 : 59 L. 'T. 279.