The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-03-16

The Councils were called to order
at 1870, President Dole in the
chair. There were present Ministers
King, Damon, Hatch and Smith, and
Councillors Ena, Waterhouse, Allen,
Emmelutn, Smith, Bclte, Morgan,
| Mott, Suhr and Young.
Minutes of the preceding meeting
read and approved.
PETITIONS.
Minister Hatch presented the fol
lowing memorial from the American
Union party:
MEMORIAL.
To His Excellency S. b. Dole and
the Members of the Executive and
Advisory Councils of the Provis-
onal'Government.
The undersigned committee was ap-
pointed by the temporary committee
of the American Union Party to me-
morIalize your Honorable bodies in
favor of the accompanying resolution
and in pursuance of that duty beg to
represent:
That the duties of the election boards
in this matter are, in reality, judicial.
To receive applications for registra-
ton: to hear the evidence as to their
possession of the required qualifica-
tions. and to decide each case on its
merits, is their function. Experience
has shown that under the present sys-
tenn it is impracticable to obtain the
intelligence, efficiency and especially
the uniformity of administration that
the importance OF the business de-
mands. Thirty men (three for each
of the ten voting precincts), taken
from their ordinary daily avocations,
meeting together few times for few
hours, once in year or two, most of
them with no special fitness or natural
aptitude for such work, and many
with but scant experience in it do not,
and in the nature of things, never can
produce satisfactory results. This is
not mere theory, but rather well es-
tablished fact. There can be no doubt
that the registers of voters, particu-
larly for mobiles, contain the names of
scores and probably hundreds of per-
SOUS who do not possess the statutory
qualifications, while an actual com
parison of the registers for the differ
ent precincts shows an amount of du-
plicate and triplicate registration
quite sufficient, if taken advantage of,
to vitiate the result of any election in
Which, Ouc pOpuldF NOLo was nOG over
whelmingly on one side. The ignor-
ance of the law exhibited by many
inspectors of election, and the extent
to which in some instances they allow
themselves to be influenced and con-
trolled in their action by the confident
manner and professedly superior
know ledge of impudent and Interested.
outsiders, constitutes a real peril to-
the purity of elections. 1t should also
be renem bered that tte law against
illegal registration aHd voting, al
though quite severe, Is, so far at least as
the Hawaiians are concerned, dead
letter. A conviction for such an offense
before native jury is practically an
i'm possibility. 80 we'll is this fact un-
derstOOd that offenders of this kind
not only go UNPUBLISHED but unprose-
cuted. By entrusting the entire busi-
ness OF registration for this district to
one central office, in charge of com
petent men, who shall give the work
all the time and care required, and be
properly paid for it, these evils can be-
mostly Temedied, and we believe they
can be remedied III no other way. We
speak Of Honolulu because we have
personal knowledge Of this field, but
we presume the same facts exist and
the same arguments will apply, i'm
some measure at least, to the country
districts.
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