protected rights which were in existence before the Franchise Act was passed. No new rights protectable by section 41 could be acquired after that time. Because the four people in this case did not acquire their right to vote in state elections until well after 1902, section 41 did not give them a right to vote in federal elections. Justices Brennan, Deane and Dawson said: "Though it is right to see s 41 as a constitutional guarantee of the right to vote, the means by which that guarantee is secured is itself definitive of the extent of the guarantee. Voting, that is, the exercise of an existing right to vote, at elections of the Commonwealth Parliament cannot 'be prevented by any law of the Commonwealth'. But s 41 does not in terms confer a right to vote." They said that if the construction suggested by the applicants was correct, then: "the power conferred upon the Parliament to legislate for a uniform franchise would be destroyed. A Parliament of a State would be empowered to give the federal franchise to those whom the Commonwealth Parliament has excluded or disqualified, for example, property owners who do not live in the State, aliens, prohibited immigrants or convicts under sentence for more serious offences." Thus, for policy and historical reasons, the majority decided that the narrower interpretation of section 41 should be adopted. Murphy's dissent The lone dissenting judgment was delivered by Justice Murphy, who before his appointment to the High Court had represented the applicant who was denied enrolment in the previous case to consider section 41, King v Jones. Murphy took the view that section 41 was a constitutional guarantee of the right to vote, and that it should be interpreted on its plain meaning, that at any given time, all persons with a right to vote in state elections had a corresponding right to vote in federal elections. He said: "Section 41 is one of the few guarantees of the rights of persons in the Australian Constitution. It should be given the purposive interpretation which accords with its plain words, with its context of other provisions of unlimited duration, and its contrast with transitional provisions. Constitutions are to read broadly and not pedantically. Guarantees of personal rights should not be read narrowly. A right to vote is so precious that it should not read out of the Constitution by implication." Murphy