Bahamas

Section 55, subsection (1) states:

The presiding officer shall not permit the number of persons who are in the polling place at the same time for the purpose of voting to exceed the number of compartments in that polling place, and shall exclude all other persons except-…

• (e) the friend of an incapacitated voter.

Section 59, subsection (1) states:

The presiding officer shall give one ballot paper, and no more, to any person whom he permits to vote, but before doing so he shall-…

• (d) if the person has no right hand thumb or if for any other reason it is, in the opinion of the presiding officer, not practical to mark that thumb, the thumb of the left hand or such other finger as the presiding officer shall direct shall be so marked or if in the opinion of the presiding officer it is not practicable to mark any finger of the person, that person shall be marked in such a way as the presiding officer considers sufficient to indicate that a ballot has been issued to that person.

Section 59, subsection (4) states:

…where the appropriate finder or any other finger which any voter may be required to immerse in electoral ink is concealed or covered with any bandage or other material, the presiding officer shall refuse to give to the voter any ballet paper unless the voter either

• (a) removes such bandage…or…
• (b) satisfies the presiding officer that he is suffering from injury to such appropriate or other finger takes an oath to that effect in the prescribed form and makes one or more impressions in ink on that form, as follows
  • (i) with his right thumb;
  • (ii) with his left thumb, should he not have a right thumb; or
  • (iii) with any other finger, should he not have any thumb.

Section 63 states:

(1) The presiding officer, on the application of any voter who is incapacitated by blindness or any other physical cause from voting in the manner prescribed by this act and who takes and subscribes an oath…in form O…and is accompanied by a friend, shall permit such friend to accompany the incapacitated voter into one of the compartments in the polling place and mark such voter's ballot for him, but no person shall…be allowed to act as the friend of more than one incapacitated voter.

(2) Any friend who is permitted to mark the ballot paper of an incapacitated voter as aforesaid shall first be required to take an oath in Form P in the Second Schedule that he will keep secret the name of the candidate for whom the ballot paper of such incapacitated voter is marked by him, and that he has not already acted as the friend of an incapacitated voter for the purpose of marking his ballot paper at the pending election.

(3) Whenever any voter has had his ballot paper marked as provided in this section, the presiding officer shall enter on a list of incapacitated persons to be kept by him the name of every such voter and the reason why it is so marked.

(4) Any person who acts as the friend of more than one incapacitated voter in breach of subsection (1) shall be guilty of an offence against this Act.

Excerpts from the Parliamentary Elections Act (2008, last amended 2011)