Court Opinion

ID: 9807570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:09:54.023963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:45:17.105064
License: Public Domain

Shith, C. J.,
dissenting. It is conceded that the election held on the 11th day of August, 1887, by the authority of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen of the City of Wilmington, was in all respects regular and in conformity with the provisions of the statute, except that a new registration of voters was both unnecessary and unauthorized, so that while upon the last registry, a majority of votes were cast in favor of the proposed subscription, upon the former there was not such majority. In one case the subscription was sustained; in the other rejected.
The city charter commands a biennial registration to be made just preceding the' election of Aldermen, which is required to take place on the fourth Thursday in March, 1877,, and for the alternate successive years thereafter, to meet and provide for changes that may take place in the interval, while it does not forbid other registrations, but rather indicates the propriety of them on occasions of deep and unusual interest, in which an expression of the popular will is to be ascertained upon an inquiry submitted. The phraseology *354of section 13 of the charter of the road, seems intended to assimilate this in its general provisions to ordinary State and county elections, for it must be held “at the usual voting places and by persons appointed in the manner that persons are appointed for holding other elections in said county, township, city or town, and the returns thereof shall be made and the results declared and certified as prescribed by law in such other elections.”
The general law regulating elections, (§2075 of The Code), gives express authority to the county commissioners to direct “ an .entirely new registration of voters before any election, instead of the revision of the registration list as above prescribed.”
Registration, being preliminary and yet part of the process of taking a popular vote, seems to be contemplated in the references made in the referred to section of the incorporating act.
There is a propriety, moreover, in having a full and correct list of persons competent to vote on the eve of an election, so as to avoid the inconvenience and mischiefs of a purgation afterwards, as is seen in the case of Rigsby v. Durham, decided at this Term, where a number short of a majority of the number on the registry,- is made a majority by striking out the names of 180 voters and reducing them from 980 to 800. It is far better to have the correction made before the election, by officers appointed to revise, and who have ample fúme to do so, instead of when the heat of the contest is felt, .and efforts are made to reverse the result by the disappointed party. Peculiar^ must this frequent revision be made in .a city so much of w;hose population have transient homes in ,the different wards.
The falling off in the registration may be ascribed to an indifference to the result, but for whatever cause it may happen, the result will be the same. All have had an oj)por--jtunity to register and thus secure the right to vote on the *355pending proposal, and if they fail to do so, it is their own fault, and must be regarded as an acquiescence in the result. I am, therefore, of opinion that the ruling should be affirmed.