The citizens of the State shall be entitled to vote at all elections held within the counties in which they respectively reside; but no person who is a minor, or who has been declared mentally incompetent by a court of competent jurisdiction, or who is under conviction of treason, felony or bribery in an election, or who has not been a resident of the state and of the county in which he offers to vote, for thirty days next preceding such offer, shall be permitted to vote while such disability continues; but no person in the military, naval or marine service of the United States shall be deemed a resident of this state by reason of being stationed therein.

[Editor’s note. – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution now provides that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. As to the appointment of women as probation officers before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, see State ex rel. Hall v. Monongalia County Court, 82 W. Va. 564, 96 S. E. 966 (1918). See also West Virginia Constitution article IV, §4.] [XXVI amendment of 1971 to the United States Constitution now provides that the rights of citizens of the United States who are eighteen years of age or older shall not be denied or abridged on account of age.] [The amendment of this section was proposed by House Joint Resolution No. 13, Acts, Regular Session, 1994, p. 2230, and ratified November 8, 1994. This section, prior to its amendment, read: “The male citizens of the State shall be entitled to vote at all elections held within the counties in which they respectively reside; but no person who is a minor, or of unsound mind, or a pauper, or who is under conviction of treason, felony, or bribery in an election, or who has not been a resident of the State for one year, and of the county in which he offers to vote, for sixty days next preceding such offer, shall be permitted to vote while such disability continues; but no person in the military, naval or marine service of the United States shall be deemed a resident of this State by reason of being stationed therein.”]