Ballot, in _American Political
Science Review_, Nov., 1911.]

[Footnote 331: Art. 29. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
I., 333.]

*237. The Franchise.*--The franchise is broadly democratic. (p. 225)
Every male who, possessing citizenship in the Empire, has completed
his twenty-fifth year is entitled to vote in the district in which he
has his domicile, provided his name appears on the registration lists.
He is not required to be a citizen of the state in which he votes. The
only exceptions to the general rule of universal manhood suffrage
arise from the disfranchisement of persons under guardianship,
bankrupts, beneficiaries of public charity, persons suffering judicial
deprivation in respect to certain of their rights as citizens, and
persons in active service in the army and navy. Any male citizen,
possessed of the right to vote, twenty-five years of age or over, and
a resident of a state of the Empire during at least one year, is
eligible as a candidate. He is not required to be a citizen of the
state from which he aspires to be elected.[332]

[Footnote 332: On the German Imperial electoral
system see Howard, The German Empire, Chap. 5;
Lebon, Etudes sur l'Allemagne politique, 70-83;
ibid., Etude sur la legislation electorale de
l'empire d'Allemagne, in _Bulletin de Legislation
Comparee_, 1879; G. Below, Das parlamentarische
Wahlrecht in Deutschland (Berlin, 1909); and M. H.
Nezard, L'Evolution du suffrage universel en Prusse
et dans l'Empire allemand, in _Revue du Droit
Public_, Oct.-Dec., 1904.]

*238. Privileges of Members.*--Solicitous lest if members of the
Reichstag should be entitled to remuneration for their services the
poorer classes would arrive at a preponderance in the chamber,
Bismarck insisted in season and out upon the non-payment of
representatives, and by the constitution of 1871 salaries were
specifically forbidden.[333] During the eighties the Imperial Court of
Appeal ruled that the payment of socialist members by their supporters
was illegal,[334] though such payment has been in recent times not
unknown. Again and again measures providing for the payment of all
members from the Imperial treasury were passed in the Reichstag, only
to be thrown out