The record-union., 1893-09-19
SHALL CITIZENS BE DISFRAN-
CHISED?


There is near at hand a most important
city election, the first under the new form
of city government. At that election
every citizen will want to vote. 1t is to
be an occasion of supreme local import
ance. But as matters now stand good
many citizens are liable to be refused
the right to deposit their ballots.
The Constitution of the State declares,
Article IL, Section l, that ''Every native
male citizen of the United States, every
male person who shall have acquired the
rights of citizenship, = who shall
have become such ninety days prior to
any election, of the age of 81 years, who
shall have been resident of the State
one year next preceding the election, and
of the county ninety days, and
in the election precinct thirty days shall
be entitled to vote at all elections" etc.
There is no ambiguity about this pro-
vision. It's clearly defined guarantee:
no law narrowing it is tolerable, and no
ruling abridging its privilege is to be pa
tientIy endured. Yet we assert that un-
less election officers are otherwise author
itatively instructed, some of the Oldest
and best citizens of the city of Sacramento
are to be deprived of their right at the
coming election to voice their desire as to
who shall administer affairs under the
oIo
which never changes its residence and is
caught at it, will be ION deck" and get in
its ballots, though fortunately under the
election law not 'early and often"
The Legislature may not abridge the
constitutional guarantee recited by the
interposition of registration law. 1t
fication of voters, which is a means to the
conservation Of honesty in voting. But
the Legislature has attempted to interfere
with the Constitution in this matter. 1t
has declared, in addition to the constitu-
tional qualification which we have quoted.
these other qualifications, which amount
whenever by their operation they require
the performance of an impossibility,
namely: the law reads that the elector
must also be enrolled on the Great
Register fifteen days prior to the election;
that such registration must show the
electors place of residence, giving the
ward or precinct.
Now there is no provision that when
the elector approaches the ballot clerk
and demands ticket the clerk shall find
upon the Register the residence of the
voter. It reads that if there he finds his
''name" he shall be permitted to vote.
But since that may imply residence
also, let the point be waived for the pres
ent. Certain it is. then. that if any reg
istered citizen removes from one precinct
to another between the time when a
register is printed for use at the polls, but
more than thirty days before the election,
his name will not be found on the regis
ter credited to the precinct in which he
attempts to vote, j. e., the precinct of his
actual residence.
In such cases if the election officers re-
fuse him the right to deposit his ballot,
though he stands ready to prove that he
has lived in the precinct for year. more
or less, but in excess of thirty days, he is
deprived of his constitutional right and
disfranchised. If he goes to the precinct
which the register shows to be his resi-
dence and offers to vote, and is challenged
on the ground that he does not live in
that precinct, he must admit the chal-
Ienge to be true, and so he IS shut out
completely from his suffrage right.
It has been suggested-but we think
without reason-that as the register is
the best evidence of residence, the record
it exposes is the voters legal residence
until the register is changed, and there
fore the man who offers under that rec
ord. and is identified as the person
named, should be allowed TO vote in the
precinct of the record. But election Off
Gers 1ecide these questions in various
ways. and, as rule, they are in extreme
doubt as to their duty.
The Superior Court has held that
though the registered applicant may have
gone to the County Clerk and had the
residence entry corrected, he cannot re-
ceive certificate of that fact which the
election officers can accept Thus We
have the anomaly of the actual record in
the Clerks Office showing the citizen to
live in one precinct while the printed
register which the election officers use
shows that be resides in another precinct.
and between the two he is allowed to
vote in neither.
The remedy for this evil. without as
sailing the constitutionality OF the regis