NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1969 SESSION

CHAPTER 175

SENATE BILL 215

AN ACT TO AMEND CHAPTER 163 OF THE GENERAL STATUTES SO AS TO PERMIT BLIND VOTERS TO SELECT ASSISTANCE WITHOUT RESTRICTION.

The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:

Section 1.  G.S. 163-152 is hereby amended by adding a new Section to be designated 163-152.1 and to read as follows:

"G.S. 163-152.1.  Assistance to blind voters in primaries and elections. — Any blind voter shall be permitted to select assistance of his own choosing in any primary or election without regard to residency within the voting precinct provided, such voter has recorded at the time of registration or prior to the date of the election, a certificate issued by the North Carolina State Commission for the Blind, by an optometrist or by a physician, stating that the named individual should be entitled to assistance as a blind voter. Upon receipt of such certification the registrar or special registration commissioner shall enter on the voter's registration record the words "blind voter" so as to establish such fact and so as to entitle such voter to the same assistance in subsequent primaries and elections whether such voter resides in a county with full-time registration or regular registration. The certification presented to the precinct registrar or special registrar shall be forwarded to the Chairman of the County Board of Elections to be filed as a permanent record with the voter's duplicate registration record as required by G.S. 163-65."

Sec. 2.  All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.

Sec. 3.  This Act shall be in full force and effect from and after its ratification.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 3rd day of April, 1969.