New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-11-09

party would endeavor to prevent his voting
Your Attorney General knew exactly ""e'e
illegal votes would be offered and pOlleu' anu
where no special safeguards were needeu "
prevent election frauds.
/ cannot follow this long debate; Out INC
general fact suflices Your party fought through
out against any registration, and (ot COURSE
against any notification beforehand that A., d.
or c., hitherto unknown there, proposed 10
claim the Right of Suffrage in certain elec-
ton district. Any one might offer to vote at
any election; if challenged, he might Oh
might not choose to swear in his 'oVoi
but, if he offered it when no one OF the Oppo-
site party was watching, or If no one saw Ill
to challenge, he would vote OF course lnaO
there are election districts whereof the voters
are Substantially all on one side, ana where
all who were around the polls would natur-
ally wink at illegal voting by such as were
right was urged without producing any
impression. Your folks stood throughout
against requiring any registry, ard IN favor
practically of letting any one vote who Of
fered to unless challenged, and, to vote also II
challenged, if willing to swear in his vote
Finally, the Article was adopted IN TINS 1orl.
ART H. Laws shall be made for ~ . ut NJ
prOner proofs the citizens who are entitien 70 Tue is
of suffrage hereby established. The Legislature nn'l
provide for registry of citizens entitled to vote IN eac
general aud special state election and charter electo
in cities No person shall vote at such elections VINO is
not REGISTERED according to law ana the mode Oh regis
tratiOn shall be uniform In all cities"
This provision your party, acting under
your instructions, have just voted down, with
the Constitution whereof it forms part And
it is given out that your Legislature will re-
peal the existing Registry law.
No one is more conscious than am that this
act affords but an imperfect safeguard against
fraudulent voting. BY allowing voters to be
registered mp to 8 p. IN. of Saturday, when the
polls are to open at sunrise the next Tuesday
morning, the purpose of affording time for
careful scrutiny of the completed registry be-
fore the polls open is defeated. The new Ar
ticie as l drafted it required six days to inter
vene between the close of the registry ana the
opening of the polls the Convention cut tins
Interval down to four days, which think TOO
little, but great deal better than one-better
still than none. l believe that provision, fairly
executed, would have shut out Ten Thousand
illegal votes at our late election.
But is our present Registry no protection
against fraudl
There were registered here for our late election
1917 names-every one of them on the per-
sonal application of the claimant OF night 10
vote. On election day, but 1862 votes were
poled for Secretary iOf State and 1865 for
Comptroller. Add 11S for scattering, and say
that III 900 voted in all, there were still Orer
T,Cenfy-sir Thousand names on the regiStrieS on
tchioh no one attempted to vote You do not
need to be told what this means. There were
not thousand in all who registered in Octo-
Der vet neglected or were unable to vote on
the 2d of November. The remaining Twenty
five Thousand names were placed on the reg
istries at the instance of "repeaters," who,
finding or hearing that they were spotted"
did not venture to vote, or, if they did venture,
were exposed and driven off or arrested. To
this extent, then, registration, imperfect as it
has proved, did prevent the polling OF fraudu-
lent votes.
But, while Honesty and Law act spasmodi-
cally, Villainy ever sleeps with one eye open,
and plans new and more subtle devices for
crcumventing Justice and Overthrowing Right.
Had no illegal vote been polled In this City
or Brooklyn, Gen. Franz Sigel would now be
our Secretary elect, as Gen. Grant in the alb
sence of fraud, would have received the
Electoral Vote Of our State by more than
Twenty Thousand majority. Let me multiply
demonstrations OH this point
Since your party pretends TO believe our last
State Census erroneous and imperfect, | put
that aside, and appeal to official returns
whereof no one can even affect to doubt the
accuracy. Here follows the number of deaths
in several of the lower Wards of our City,
where your party has swelled its vote so mon
s+rouslv in the last two or three elections: