The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-20 00:00:00

Registration of County Voters.

The Commons Select Committee on the Present System
of Registration of County Voters in England have made
their repot t. They have to state that the registers are at
once impure and defective, and the process of remedying
them is frequently attended with annoyance and expense to
individuals. Great facilities are afforded fer unqualified
persons getting upon the register, while, on the other hand,
persons entitled to a vote are liable to be annually called
upon to substantiate their right, and objections are ven-
tured on the chance that they will not take up the chal-
lenge. The majority of the witnesses examined before the
committee consider the following alterations in the law to
be desirable

" I. That every notice of objection given by a registered
elector should specify the grounds of his objection.
"11. That overseers objecting should be bound to specify
the grounds of their objection, and to give notice thereof to
the addiess of the person objected to, in the same manner
as any other objector.

" 111. That any claimant or registered elector objected to
on any ground as not qualified to have a vote should be at
liberty to make a statutory declaration under the sth and
6th William IV., cap. 62, in support of his right, and to
inform the objector that he had made it ; that any objector
thereupon persisting in his objection should, unless he suc-
ceeded in keeping or striking the name off the register, be
necessarily subject to costs.

" IV. That any claimant or registered elector objected to
on the ground of any error or incompleteness in his claim
or entry in the register should be at liberty to correct such
error, or to supply information to complete his claim or
entry, by letter addressed to some person officially charged
with the preparation of the register, and to inform the ob-
jector thereof ; that any objector thereupon persisting in his
objection should, unless he succeeded in making it good,
be necessarily subject to costs.

" V. That each parish list in the register should contain
not only the names of voters qualified for property situate
within such parish, but also the names of voters residing in
such parish, but qualified for .property situate in other
parishes of the same county; and that the register or polling
number of such voters should be placed against their names
in the parish of their residence, instead of in that of their
qualifying property.
`• VI. That the clerk of the peace should annually fur-
nish the overseers of the parishes in his county with a suffi-
cient number of lists of registered voters in their several
parishes for publication and sale from the copies of the
register in his possession.
" VII. That the list of voters on the existing re-
gister in each parish should be annually published by the
overseers on the same day as the notices to claim. The
committee are of opinion that these changes would be im-
provements; but they consider that in regard of objections
by overseers, when made on the ground,of death, notices of
objections need not ho served.

" They consider that each ground of objection taken by
an objector should ho treated as a separate objection ; that
cost: should follow the event, unless the revising barrister
in his discretion saw fit to ,withhold them, or, in a case
where several grounds of objection had been taken, some of
which had succeeded while others failed, to compound the
costs.

" The committee particularly inquired into the possibi-
lity of making the registration of county voters less depen-
dent on the care of individuals, or the activity of political
agents, and more a subject of official agency. In Scotch and
Irish counties, end in boroughs throughout the three king-
doms, registration is a matter of official agency, supple-
mented and checked by individual action. The nature and
variety of the qua,ifications for the county franchise in
England and Wales, depending as it does mainly on title,
tenure, and beneficial interest, limit the application of
i any
official system, and render it impossible to dispense witha n-
dividual action to the same extent as in constituencies in
which the franchise depends on more apparent circum-
stances.

" Most. of the Witnesses have' expressed themselves in
favour of entrusting the correction of claims and entries in
all points not essential to the right to vote to official agents,
to whom the claimants and electors should be invited to
furnhh all requisite information."