Case ID: misc_16/html/0128-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Dunmore, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Matter of the Application to strike the Name of John Griffiths from the Registry List of Voters of the Second Election District in the Eleventh Ward of the City of Utica.
    (County Court, Oneida County,
    February, 1896.)
    1. Elections — Registry — Order to show cause.
    An order to show cause why the name of a person should not be stricken from a registry list need not be served upon any one except such person, although the order provides for service upon others.
    2. Same — Inmate of charitable institution.
    An inmate of an institution supported wholly or partly by charity' who had gained a legal voting residence in the district .prior to the taking effect of the Constitution of 1894 is not deprived of his right to vote by the provisions of section 3 of article 2 of said Constitution.
    This is a motion, made under section 37 of the Election Law, to strike the name of John Griffiths from the registry list on the ground that he is an inmate of the Home for Aged Men, located in said district, an institution supported wholly or partly by charity, 'and that he came to' said institution from some place other than said election, district, and, therefore, had not gained a residence therein.
    James Coupe, for motion.
    H. L. Gates, opposed.
   Dunmore, J.

A preliminary objection is raised by Mr. Gates, that the order to show cause providing that notice should be given to Joseph Harding, Frank Drash and M. Devereux had not been complied with, and that no notice has been given to them as required by the terms of the order.

• We think the provisions of the order referred to may be treated as surplusage for the reason that the statute does not require notice to be given to any person except .Mr. Griffiths, and due notice having been given to him the preliminary objection is overruled.

Upon the hearing the following facts were stipulated: . “ That said Griffiths came to the Home for Aged Men, November 1, 1893, paid the usual application fee of $250, and became an inmate thereof subject to its rules and regulations; that-he voted thereafter at the election held in 1894, and he then claimed and now claims the home as his legal voting residence, and claims that he has no other legal home,, and that he expects to remain at said home for the remainder of his life, and is there kept (that is, supported) as an inmate of such institution.”

At the time said Griffiths came to the home in question, the quovisions of the Constitution relating to his right to gain a residence there, were as follows:

“Article H.
“ § 3. For the purpose of voting, no person shall be deemed to have gamed or lost a residence, by reason of his presence or absence, while employed in the service of the United States; nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of this state, or of the United States, or of the high spas; nor while a student of any seminary of learning; nor while kept at any almshouse, or other asylum, at public expense; nor while confined in any public prison.”
There is no pretense that said institution is supported in whole- or in part at public expense, or that said Griffiths was' supported, there at public expense.
As said Griffiths was not kept at said institution at public expense there is nothing in that constitutional provision prohibiting him from acquiring a residence there, and as he claims that he liastaken up his residence there permanently and expected to remain there during the rest of his life, at the expiration of one year from, his entrance to the home he became a resident of this state, and a legal resident of that election district. There is no claim bat that, he possessed all of the other qualifications necessary to make him a legal voter. He was then, on the 1st'of November, 1894, a legal resident and a legal voter in the second election district of the eleventh ward, and continued to be up till the 1st of January, 1895. At that time the hew Constitution went into effect. The only change made in the above section was by the substitution of the words, “nor while kept at any almshouse, or other asylum or institution wholly or partly supported at public expense or by •charity,” in place of- the words, '-“nor while- kept at any almshouse or other asylum at public expensé.”

The question before me-is as to the effect of that amendment upon the legal status of said Griffiths as a voter in said district.. If the rights of said Griffiths, as a voter, had not vested prior to January 1, 1895, an entirely different question would be presented, but as he had acquired a legal voting residence in that district prior to the time the new Constitution took effect, and, therefore, had lost a residence to vote elsewhere by reason of his having gained a residence in this district, should the. Constitution be so construed as to divest him of that vested right and leave him without any voting residence anywhere? I think not. I do not think that was the purpose of that-constitutional amendment. I do not think it was intended to change the legal status of the voting residence of any person whose right had vested prior to January 1, T89 5, The application musty therefore, be denied.

Application denied.