A list shall be accompanied by written declarations of support for the list from voters, listing the candidates in the same way and in the same order as on the list. In the case of an election to the House of Representatives or to a provincial or municipal council with at least 39 seats to be filled, the minimum number of declarations of support shall be 30; in the case of an election to a municipal council with fewer than 39 but more than 19 seats to be filled, the minimum number of declarations of support shall be 20, and in the case of an election to a municipal council with fewer than 19 seats to be filled the minimum number of declarations of support to be submitted shall be 10.
Declarations of support may be made only by persons registered as voters for the relevant election in the electoral district to which the list applies.
A voter who wishes to make a declaration of support shall, no more than seven days before, or on, nomination day, sign the declaration at the clerk’s office of the municipality where he is registered as a voter, in the presence of the mayor or a municipal official designated by him for this purpose. The voter shall hand the mayor or the municipal official a document as referred to in section 1 of the Compulsory Identification Act.
The mayor or the municipal official designated by him for this purpose shall immediately check whether the voter is registered in his municipality. If this proves to be the case, he shall note it on the declaration.
A voter may not sign more than one declaration of support.
Once submitted, a declaration of support may not be retracted.
When and where forms for declarations of support may be obtained, free of charge, by voters shall be regulated by order in council. A model form shall be established by ministerial order.
The obligation referred to in subsection 1 shall not apply to a list of candidates of a political grouping whose appellation was placed at the top of a list of candidates to which one or more seats were awarded at the last election to the relevant representative assembly. The previous sentence shall also apply to:
a. a combination of appellations of two or more groupings, if one or more seats were awarded at the last election to the relevant assembly, either to the groupings jointly or to at least one of them;
b. a new appellation if two or more groupings participate participate in the election as a single grouping under a new name and each of the individual groupings was awarded one or more seats at the last election to the relevant assembly.
