New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-02-17


of the Legal Voters in their respective dissriets,
which would not vary five thousand in all from
perfectly accurate List Of the Legal Voters Of their
respective districts. Now draw Of these several
Lists in alphabetical order, expose them to scrutiny
in some public place, and each party will at once
proceed, BY its more active and intelligent mem
bers to scrutinze it and suggest the names OF legal
voters of their faith whs have been omitted, and
TO mark for challenge those adverse to them who
have been placed on the list Appoint second
dsy-say fortnight before the ensuing election
on which every citizen may sppear before the
Board with his evidence affecting the right oil any
one whose name is on that list, or the claim
Of any one who is suggested as entitled to be placed
there, and the whole business may be concluded
directly. In most instances, where the registering
officers are of average intelligence, we presume the
list made up on the frat day would be found very
nearly, if not absolutely correct and the revl'
sion would prove merely form. The suppodtion
that the Board would designedly omit the names Of
legal voters, because Of the opposite party, is alb
surd. since such omission would only incite the
party thus unfairly dealt with to greater vigilance,
not only in hunting up names Of the right sort to
place upon the Registry, but to bring those so In
scribed to the polls. Besides every voter thus e1-
cluded would subject the Board to extra trouble in
revising and correcting the Registry. Surely, the
holding of Office does not necessarily divess men OF
common sense.
As to Dir. Morris's threat Of going to the polls
and Offering his vote in defiance Of the Registry
Act, we feel sure that he cannot keep his name of
the Registry, LET him do his worst. So with Others
with nearly or quite all others-1ho are legal
voters. Each party in every township aud election
district will have its Vigilance Conmittee-in
effect, if not in name-who will take care that all
those Of their way of thinking who have right to
be on the Registry are placed there. There is
more danger that names will be put on than kept
of mistakenly, though how the name of one not
entitled to vote can be kept on uDjustly We cannot
imagine. For each party, through its active men,
will inevitably scrutinize the list, as originally
made out, and will naturally challenge every name
not kno,cn to them as legal voter unless OF their
own eide. OF course, those Of questionable right
whom one party does not challenge the other
will; so that none whose right to vote is not IN.
doubted can remain unquestiOned. But, when q name
is challenged the vigilant, Of the party which he
10 presumed to favor will be the alert to procure
and adduce evidence of his right; and, though he DO
a .esman low in the Indian Ocean, digger at
Pixies Peak, his right will be sustained lift can be.
We do not propose to urge the necessity Of
Registry He who needs argument on this head
either despises the Right of Suffrage, or hopes to
profit by it's subversion through Illegal Voting
We know and can prove that Illegal Voting last
Fall was not confined to cities, though here it was
doubtless most abundant. We believe that Henry
CLAW lost the votes of New-York and Louisiana
and was beaten by it in 1544. We believe that it
will endure and increase so long as our laws afford
it the facilities now exsting-that if it had been
Suspected that an additional score OF votes only
were required to beat John B. Haskin last Fall,
those votes would have been cast in Cold Spring
or in Peekskill alone. In short, We believe that
our Election Laws, as they stand, do tempt and
incte to Illegal Voting, by profering facilities for
its wholesale preparation with impunity, and that
Registration of Legal Voters is the only effective
remedy. And we hold it neither necessary, nor
just to allow single vote to be polled BY any per-
son whose name is not borne on the Register Of
the district in which that vote is offered. If the
Legislature has right to require "proper proofs
of the voters right Of suffrage on the day Of Elec
ton, they have as clear right to require its pro-
duction ten or twenty days before.