Article II: Of Election

The election of the Roman Pontiff is governed solely by the constitution of Pius X Vacante Sede Apostolica, 25 Dec. 1904; in other ecclesiastical elections, the prescriptions of the canons which follow are to be observed, and also special prescriptions, if there are any, legitimately established for individual offices.

If some college has the right of electing to a vacant office, the election, unless something else has been provided by law, is never to be deferred beyond a useful trimester to be computed from notice of the vacancy of the office having been received; when this term has elapsed without effect, the ecclesiastical Superior to whom the right of confirming the election or the successive right of providing belongs is to provide freely for the vacant office.

§ 1. With particular constitutions or customs saved, the president of the college, in the established manner and at a place and time convenient for the electors, is to convoke all members of the college; and the convocation, when it must be personal, is valid if it is made either in the place of domicile or quasi-domicile or in the place of residence.

§ 2. If one of those to be called has been neglected and therefore was absent, the election is valid, but at his instance it must be invalidated by the competent Superior, even after confirmation has followed, once the omission and absence have been proved, provided it is juridically established that recourse was transmitted at least within three days from notice of the election having been received.

§ 3. But if more than a third part of the electors have been neglected, the election is null by the law itself.

§ 4. A defect of convocation does not stand in the way if those passed over nevertheless were present.

§ 5. If there is question of election to an office which the elected person retains for life, a convocation of the electors before the vacancy of the office has no juridical effect.

Once convocation has legitimately followed, the right of electing belongs to those who are present on the day established in the convocation, with the faculty of casting votes not only by letter but also by proxy excluded, unless a particular law provides otherwise.

Although someone may have the right of casting a vote in his own name by several titles, he cannot cast more than one.

No one outside the college can be admitted to vote, with legitimately acquired privileges saved; otherwise, the election is null by that very fact.

If lay persons in any way involve themselves against the canonical liberty of an ecclesiastical election, the election is invalid by the law itself.

§ 1. The following cannot cast a vote:

1° Those incapable of a human act.

2° Impubescent persons.

3° Those affected by censure or infamy of law, but only after a declaratory or condemnatory sentence.

4° Those who have given their name to a heretical or schismatic sect or have publicly adhered to one.

5° Those lacking active voice either because of a legitimate sentence of a judge or from common or particular law.

§ 2. If one of the aforesaid is admitted, his vote is null, but the election is valid, unless it is established that, with him removed, the elected person did not receive the required number of votes, or unless one excommunicated by declaratory or condemnatory sentence was knowingly admitted.

If one of the electors is present in the house in which the election takes place, but because of poor health cannot be present at the election, his written vote is to be sought by the scrutineers, unless something else has been established by particular laws or legitimate customs.

§ 1. A vote is null unless it has been:

1° Free; and therefore a vote is invalid if the elector has been forced, by grave fear or fraud, directly or indirectly, to elect a certain person or several persons disjunctively.

2° Secret, certain, absolute, and determinate.

§ 2. Conditions attached to a vote before the election are considered as not added.

No one can validly give a vote to himself.

§ 1. Before an election by secret votes, unless they have already been appointed by proper statutes, at least two scrutineers are to be appointed from the body of the college; together with the president, if he also is from the body of the college, they are to take an oath concerning faithfully fulfilling their duty and preserving secrecy concerning the acts in the meetings, even after the election has been completed.

§ 2. The scrutineers are to take care that votes be cast secretly, diligently, one by one, and with the order of precedence observed by each elector; and, after the votes have finally been collected, in the presence of the president of the election, according to the form established by proper constitutions or legitimate customs, they are to inspect whether the number of votes corresponds to the number of electors, examine the votes themselves, and publicly make known how many each one received.

§ 3. If the number of votes exceeds the number of those electing, nothing has been done.

§ 4. The votes are to be burned immediately after each scrutiny has been completed, or after the session if several scrutinies are held in the same session.

§ 5. All acts of the election are to be accurately described by the one who performs the office of actuary, and, signed at least by the same actuary, the president, and the scrutineers, are to be diligently preserved in the archive of the college.

§ 1. An election, unless something else is provided by law, can also be made by compromise, if namely the electors, by unanimous and written consent, transfer for that occasion the right of electing to one or more suitable persons, whether from the body of the college or outside it, who, in the name of all, are to elect from the faculty received.

§ 2. If there is question of a clerical college, the compromise delegates must be priests; otherwise the election is invalid.

§ 3. For the validity of the election, the compromise delegates must observe the conditions attached to the compromise which are not contrary to common law; if no conditions were added, they must observe common law concerning elections; but conditions contrary to law are to be held as not added.

§ 4. If by the electors compromise has been made into only one person, this person cannot elect himself; if several compromise delegates have been designated, none of them can by his own consent accede to the others electing him so as to complete his own election.

The compromise ceases and the right of electing returns to those who made the compromise:

1° By revocation made by the college, while the matter is still intact.

2° By some condition attached to the compromise not having followed or not having been observed.

3° By an election having been completed, if it was null.

That person is to be held elected and is to be proclaimed by the president of the college who has received the required number of votes, according to the norm of can. 101, Sec. 1, n. 1.

The election must immediately be communicated to the elected person, who must, at least within eight useful days from receiving the communication, make known whether he consents to the election or renounces it; otherwise he loses every right acquired from the election.

§ 1. If the elected person has renounced, he loses every right acquired from the election, even if afterwards he repents of the renunciation; but he can be elected again; moreover the college must proceed to a new election within a month from knowledge of the renunciation.

§ 2. By acceptance of the election, the elected person, if he does not need confirmation, immediately obtains full right; otherwise he acquires only a right to the thing.

§ 3. Before confirmation has been accepted, under pretext of the election he is not permitted to involve himself in the administration of the office, whether in spiritual or temporal matters, and acts perhaps placed by him are null.

§ 1. The elected person, if the election needs confirmation, must at least within eight days from the day of accepting the election seek confirmation from the competent Superior, by himself or through another; otherwise he is deprived of every right, unless he has proved that he was detained by a just impediment from seeking confirmation.

§ 2. The Superior, if he has found the elected person suitable and the election was carried out according to the norm of law, cannot deny confirmation.

§ 3. Confirmation must be given in writing.

§ 4. Once confirmation has been received, the elected person obtains full right in the office, unless something else is provided in law.

If an election has not been carried out within the prescribed time, or if the college is deprived of the right of electing as a penalty, free provision of the office devolves upon that Superior by whom the election would have had to be confirmed, or to whom the successive right of providing belongs.