Section 45
SEC. 45. Section four hundred and eighty-one of the Administrative Code is hereby amended to read as follows: "SEC. 481. Mode of procedure in court cases.—Proceedings for the judicial contest of an election shall be upon motion with notice of not to exceed twenty days to all registered candidates voted for and not upon pleadings or by action, and the contests shall be heard and determined by the court in the judicial district in which the election was held regardless of whether said court be at the time holding a regular or stated term. In such proceedings the registration list as finally corrected by the board of inspectors shall be conclusive as to who was entitled to vote at such election. "The aforesaid notice shall be served by delivery by the sheriff of a copy of the summons and the contest to each of the registered candidates voted for personally, or in case of their not being found, by leaving such copies at their usual place of residence, in the hands of some person, resident therein and of sufficient discretion to receive the same; such notice shall be considered as having been served if the acknowledgment of the service made as hereinbefore prescribed shall appear on the back of the summons. "Where the whereabouts of a candidate is unknown, for the reason that he is absent from the locality or conceals himself to avoid the service of summons, and the fact appears by affidavit to the satisfaction of the court, the latter shall make an order that the service be made by publication in some newspaper generally read in the locality, or in the absence thereof, by notices posted in several of the most conspicuous places of the locality, of an order which he shall make and which shall fix the date on which the person' absent, concealed or of unknown whereabouts shall appear, which shall not be more than twenty days thereafter. "The court shall hear election contests in preference to all other cases and shall try and decide them as soon as possible. "The clerk of the court in which any such contest is instituted shall give immediate notice of its institution and also of the determination thereof to the Chief of the Executive Bureau."