The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-01-22
(b) Registration which shall provide

once in ten years and also an enroll
ment each and every year of every
elector not previously registered.
(c) All male persons of voting age
applying for registration who can read
any Section of the Constitution sub
mitted to them by the registration Off
GERS, or understand and explain it when
read to them.
These are the requirements up to
January, 1898. After this time per-
son applying for registration, if other
wise qualified, must be able to both
read and write any Section of the Con-
stitutlon submitted to him by the reg
istration officer, or can show that he
owns and has paid all taxes collectable
during the previous year on property
in the State assessed at three hundred
$4,000 dollars or more. The payment
of all taxes including poll ta1, is a pre-
requisite to voting.
It will readily appear to you that
different legislation is required for the
period up to 1898, from that thereafter.
1 would suggest, however, to your
honorable body that all the provisions
of the Constitution and your legisla-
ton in reference thereto be comprised
in one statute, as it is exceedingly de-
sirable that it should be thoroughly
circulated among the citizens of the
State. Designing demagogues are al
ready at work filing the ears and
heads of confding constituents with
false impressions concerning the pro-
visions Of the G Constitution, and there
is no safer plan to set at naught such
falsehoods than by allowing the peo-
pie to see and read for themselves.
It is your duty to provide for the is
suing to each duly registered elector o
certificate of registration, and for the
thereof, when lost, mutilated
or destroyed. I am satisfied you can
do no better than to adopt the old
form of registration certificate and the
provisions of the statute law now OF
force regulating the same. ezpunging
such provisions as conflict with the
new Constitution, which will readily
present themselves to you. This, how
ever, is matter for your own good
Judgment and wisdom. Any person
denied registration shall have the right
of appeal to the Court of Common
Pleas or any Judge thereof, and thence
to the Supreme Court. 1t is made
your duty to provide by law for such
appeal and for the correction of illegal
and fraudulent registration, voting and
all other crimes against the election
laws. I would suggest that as little
red tape as possible be placed around
this right Of appeal, and that you shall
amply provide against defeating it by
technicaihes., There should be also
as little expense attached to the right
as possible. Under the provisions
governing this right Of appeal to the
Supreme Court now existing in civil
cases, I fear very few cases OF denied
registration would ever reach this
stage if the same were deapphcable.
The person complaining in such cases
must necessarily be of the poorer and
less intelligent classes; but this is
sacred right under our form Of govern
ment, and they are entitled to every
test allowed under the Constitution,
consistent with the rule of intelligence,
without unnecessary hardship or ex-
pense. The severest punishmentshould
be prescribed by your honorable body
for frauds in registration or voting.
There was time when the ends would
seem to justify the means in this par
ticular, but the necessity no longer
exists, and the day is past when any
thing but the will of the intelligent
majority freely and honestly expressed
at the ballot box can govern in South
Carolina.
Certain persons convicted of crime,
the insane, etc., are disqualified from
registering or voting. L would re-
spectfully recommend thatyou provide
for list of all criminals in each
County, to be filed in the Office of the
Supervisor of Registration and also
with the Clerk of the Court, in order
that they may be forever barred of the
privilege of registering or voting.
Itisincumbentupon you to prescribe
the manner of holding elections and
OF ascertainiag the results of the same.
There is no necessity for any change
at this time in our law in this par
ticular. Our people are accustomed
to the eight box law, and there can
be no Just. or valid objection to the
manner Of obtaining the results of
elections. We have been served
with notice that this Article in our
Constitution would be tested before the
United States Supreme Court; and
while I have no fears as to the result,
and am fully convinced of its constItu-
tionality, still should another Gof
come along, whose ''inclinations made
it his duty" to set aside our registra-
ton tho day before election, in such
an emergency our eight box law