It must be noted that those who, without being permanently deprived of the right to vote, are only prevented from voting by certain special circumstances, because of being under colours, or imprisonment, or because by mistake they have been left off electoral lists, are eligible for election. In the same way civil servants are also eligible. German law does not know relative ineligibilities, which French public law admits. III.--PREPARATION OF ELECTIONS. In a country of sixty million inhabitants of whom more than half are electors and vote, above all, where the system of proportional representation has been adopted, preparation of the elections takes on special importance. An organization must be provided which permits to each elector the exercise of his right, and, as far as possible, facilitates it. German law provides to this end a rather complex machinery. First, it provides for a table of thirty-five electoral districts into which the territory of the Reich is divided, and for seventeen groups of districts, into which districts are joined. Then it institutes a whole series of organisms appointed by the administration and charged with the duty of seeing that the electoral procedure was carried out properly. These organisms are: 1. Electoral committees, which have as their function the examination of lists of candidates, the union of such tickets, and the compiling of the election results for each degree of the distribution of seats in the Reichstag. There are electoral committees for each district, for each group of districts, and a committee for the Reich. 2. Superintendents of elections, who preside over electoral committees, whose function for each stage of division of seats is to confer with the representatives of political parties, to receive lists of candidates and the declarations in which the parties “join” their tickets or make up a ticket for the Reich; these superintendents announce the decisions. 3. Chairmen of election boards who supervise the electoral operations in their boards. 4. Election boards which consist, in addition to the chairman, of three members and six assistants, who supervise the voting and pass on the validity of ballots. 5. Men trusted by political parties who serve as intermediaries between them and the administrative authorities. 6. Distributors of electoral envelopes, etc. The law specifies very clearly the manner in which lists of candidates must be drawn up and presented. There are or may be for each party district tickets and a ticket for the Reich; there are no tickets for groups of districts. These tickets must include only eligible candidates, the status of eligibility of a candidate being examined by the competent electoral committee. The lists must be signed by 50 or 20 electors, according to whether the ticket is for a district or for the Reich. A candidate may appear on the tickets of different districts but not more than once within the same district.