ballot. Any elector may write his name upon his ticket or cause the same to be written thereon and attested by a citizen of the district. The election officers shall be sworn or affirmed not to disclose how any elector shall have voted unless required to do so as witnesses in a judicial proceeding.

Sec. 5. Electors shall in all cases except treason, felony and breach of surety of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance on elections, and in going and returning therefrom.

Sec. 6. Whenever any of the qualified electors of this Commonwealth shall be in actual military service, under a requisition from the President of the United States, or by the authority of this Commonwealth, such electors may exercise the right of suffrage in all elections by the citizens, under such regulations as are or shall be prescribed by law, as fully as if they were present at their usual places of election.

Sec. 7. All laws regulating the holding of elections by the citizens, or for the registration of electors, shall be uniform throughout the State, but no elector shall be deprived of the pri vilege of voting by reason of his name not being registered.

Sec. 8. Any person, who shall give, or promise or offer to give, to any elector, any money, reward or other valuable consideration for his vote at an election, or for withholding the same, or who shall give or promise to give such consideration to any person or party for such elector's vote or for the withholding thereof, and any elector who shall receive or agree to receive, for himself or for another, any money, reward or other valuable consideration for his vote at an election, or for withholding the same, shall thereby forfeit the right to vote at such election, and any elector whose right to vote shall be challenged for such cause before the election officers, shall be required to swear or affirm that the matter of the challenge is untrue before his vote shall be received.

Sec. 9. Any person who shall, while a candidate for office, be guilty of bribery, fraud, or willful violation of any election law, shall be forever disqualified from holding an office of trust or profit in this Commonwealth; and any person convicted of willful violation of the election laws shall, in addition to any penalities provided by law, be deprived of the right of suffrage absolutely for a term of four years.

Sec. 10. In trials of contested elections and in proceedings for the investigation of elections, no person shall be permitted to withhold his testimony upon the ground that it may criminate himself or subject him to public infamy; but such testimony shall not afterwards be used against him in any judicial proceeding except for perjury in giving such testimony.

Sec. 11. Townships, and wards of cities or boroughs, shall form or be divided into election districts or compact and contiguous territory, in such manner as the Court of Quarter Sessions of the city or county in which the same are located may direct; but districts in cities of over one hundred thousand inhabitants shall be divided by the Courts of Quarter Sessions, having jurisdiction therein, whenever at the next preceding election more than two hundred and fifty votes shall have been polled therein; and other election districts whenever the court of the proper county shall be of opinion that the convenience of the electors and the public interest will be promoted thereby.

Sec. 12. All elections by persons in a representative capacity shall be viva voce.

Sec. 13. For the purpose of voting no person shall be deemed to have gained a residence by reason of his presence, or lost it by reason of his absence, while employed in the service, either civil or military, of this State or of the United States, nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of the State or of the United States, or on the high seas, nor while a student of any institution of learning, nor while kept in any poor-house or other asylum at public expense, nor while confined in public prison.

Sec. 14. District election boards shall consist of a judge and two inspectors, who shall be chosen annually by the citizens. Each elector shall have the right to vote for the judge and one inspector, and each inspector shall appoint one clerk. The first election board for any new district shall be selected, and vacancies in election boards filled, as shall be provided by law. Election officers shall be privileged from arrest upon days of election, and while engaged in making up and transmitting returns, except upon warrant of a court of record or judge thereof, for an election fraud, for felony, or for wanton breach of the peace. In cities they may claim exemption from jury duty during their terms of service.

Sec. 15. No person shall be qualified to serve as an election officer who shall hold, or within two months have held any office, appointment or employment in or under the government of the United States or of this State, or of any city, or county, or of any municipal board, commission or trust in any city, save only justices of the peace and aldermen, notaries public and persons in the militia service of the State; nor shall any election officer be eligible to any civil office to be filled at an election at which he shall serve, save only to such subordinate municipal or local offices, below the grade of city or county offices, as shall be desig nated by general law.

Sec. 16. The Courts of Common Pleas of the several counties of the Commonwealth shall have power, within their respective jurisdictions, to appoint overseers of election to supervise the proceedings of election officers and to make report to the court as may be required; such appointments to be made for any district in a city or county upon petition of five citizens, lawful voters of such election district. setting forth that such appointment is a reasonable precaution to secure the purity and fairness of elections; overseers shall be two in number for an election ditrict, shall be residents therein, and shall be persons qualified to serve upon election boards, and in each case members of different political parties; whenever a member of an election board shall differ in opinion the overseers, if they shall be agreed thereon, shall decide the question of difference; in appointing overseers of election all the law judges of the proper court, able to act at the time, shall concur in the appointments made.

Sec. 17. The trial and determination of contested elections of electors of President and Vice-President, members of the General Assembly, and of all public officers, whether State, judicial, municipal or local, shall be by the courts of law, or by one or more of the law judges thereof; the General Assembly shall, by general law, designate the courts and judges by whom the several classes of election contests shall be tried, and regulate the manner of trial and all matters incident thereto; but no such law assigning jurisdiction, or regulating its exercise, shall apply to any contest arising out of an election held before its passage.

ARTICLE IX.

Taxation and Finance.

Section 1. All taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of subjects, within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax, and shall be levied and collected under general laws; but the General Assembly may, by general laws, exempt from taxation public property used for public purposes, actual places of religious worship, places of 'burial not used or held for private or corporate profit, and institutions of purely public charity.

Sec. 2. All laws exempting property from taxation, other than the property above enumerated, shall be void.

Sec. 3. The power to tax corporations and corporate property shall not be surrendered or suspended by any contract or grant to which the State shall be a party.

Sec. 4. No debt shall be created by or on behalf of the State, except to supply casual deficiencies of revenue, repel invasions, suppress insurrection, defend the State in war, or to pay existing debts; and the debt created to supply deficiencies in revenue shall never exceed, in the aggregate at any one time, one million of dollars.

All laws authorizing the borrowing of money by and on behalf of the State, shall specify the purpose for which the money is to be used, and the money so borrowed shall be used for the purpose specified and no other.

shall not be

Sec. 6. The credit of the Commonwealth pledged or loaned to any individual, company, corporation or association, nor shall the Commonwealth become a joint owner or stockholder in any company, association or corporation.

Sec. 7. The General Assembly shall not authorize any county, city, borough, township or incorporated district to become a stockholder in any company, association or corporation, or to obtain or appropriate money for, or to loan its credit to, any corporation, association, institution or individual.

Sec. 8. The debt of any county, city, borough, township, school district or other municipality or incorporated district, except as herein provided, shall never exceed seven per centum upon the assessed value of the taxable property therein, nor shall any such municipality or district incur any new debt, or increase its indebtedness to an amount exceeding two per centum upon

such assessed valuation of property, without the assent of the electors thereof at a public election in such manner as shall be provided by law; but any city, the debt of which now exceeds seven per centum of such assessed valuation, may be authorized by law to increase the same three per centum, in the aggregate at any one time, upon such valuation.

Sec. 9. The Commonwealth shall not assume the debt, or any part thereof, of any city, county, borough or township, unless such debt shall have been contracted to enable the State to repel invasion, suppress domestic insurrection, defend itself in time of war, or to assist the State in the discharge of any portion of its present indebtedness.

Sec. 10. Any county, township, school district or other municipality incurring any indebtedness shall, at or before the time of so doing, provide for the collection of an annual tax sufficient to pay the interest and also the principal thereof within thirty

years.

Sec. 11. To provide for the payment of the present State debt, and any additional debt contracted as aforesaid, the General Assembly shall continue and maintain the sinking fund, sufficient to pay the accruing interest on such debt, and annually to reduce the principal thereof by a sum not less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the said sinking fund shall consist of the proceeds of the sales of the public works or any part thereof, and of the income or proceeds of the sale of any stocks owned by the Commonwealth, together with other funds and resources that may be designated by law, and shall be increased from time to time by assigning to it any part of the taxes or other revenues of the State not required for the ordinary and current expenses of government; and unless in case of war, invasion or insurrection, no part of the said sinking fund shall be used or applied otherwise than in the extinguishment of the public debt.

Sec. 12. The moneys of the State, over and above the necessary reserve, shall be used in the payment of the debt of the State, either directly or through the sinking fund, and the moneys of the sinking fund shall never be invested in or loaned upon the secur ity of anything, except the bonds of the United States or of this State.

Sec. 13. The moneys held as necessary reserve shall be limited by law to the amount required for current expenses, and shall