Court Opinion

ID: 9851495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:13:53.623751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:02.208449
License: Public Domain

EAGLESON, J.
I dissent. This is one of those unusual cases in which a dissenting justice can say appropriately: “I dissent for the reasons stated in the majority opinion.” In my view the Court of Appeal properly construed and applied to the circumstances of this case the statutes governing voter domicile and registration.
The problem in this case is simple. The solution should be.
A voter moves from his residence and voting domicile. He concedes that he does not intend to return to that residence, and is temporarily residing elsewhere. He intends to find a new residence, one that may or may not be in the precinct of his former domicile, at some future, but indefinite, time.
The majority conclude that the precinct of this voter’s former residence and voting domicile will continue to be his voting domicile indefinitely until he not only makes up his mind to create a voting domicile elsewhere but actually does so by moving to a new residence at which he intends to remain for the foreseeable future. No matter how often he moves, or how long he remains out of the precinct of his former domicile, he may cast his vote in that precinct until he decides that his current residence is not “temporary.”
The majority reason that acceptance of the voter’s assertion that, although he has abandoned his former residence and voting domicile without intent to return to that residence, his present residence is only temporary, and therefore permitting him to continue to vote in the former precinct, will avoid fraudulent voting. A greater danger of fraud would exist, they claim, if we conclude that the voter has established a new voting domicile. The majority suggest that fraudulent voting would be easier because voters could move to a precinct in order to influence an election in a location at which they did not intend to remain, and then move back to their prior domicile. The majority make this suggestion notwithstanding the objective evidence and concession by the voter that h'e has left his former voting domicile—evidence that he has moved himself and his possessions out of his former residence and has lived in a new precinct for more than 28 days.
Somehow, in the view of the majority, fraud is more easily perpetrated if we permit a voter, who has actually gone to the trouble and expense of *16moving, to vote in the location to which he has moved, than if we permit him to claim for an indefinite period that he does not intend to remain in that location and therefore remains domiciled for voting purposes in a precinct in which he does not live and to which he says he has no intent to return. Not only is the logic leading to this result untenable, but the result cannot be reconciled with the clear legislative intent that voters who have abandoned their voting domicile, i.e., those who have moved without intent to return, may not continue to vote in the precinct of that domicile for more than 28 days. The strained logic of the majority is not necessary to achieve the goal of avoiding possible disenfranchisement of members of our increasingly peripatetic citizenry, and, as the election at issue demonstrates, the result affords an incentive to engage in a type of fraud the Legislature sought to eliminate. The impact may be minimal in an election like that here involved, one for at-large seats on a city council. In a city which elects council members by district, however, or on measures or candidates who appear only on the ballot for the precinct of the voters’ former domicile, the result may well be that persons who no longer reside in the precinct (or city, or county) and have no intention of ever doing so again will control the outcome of the election.
The majority accept and apply an untenable syllogism: Because everyone must have a voting “domicile,” a person who has abandoned a domicile with no intent to return thereto, but has not yet established a residence at which he intends to remain for the indefinite future, continues to be domiciled at the location to which he intends not to return.
I suggest that both thoughtful reflection and adherence to the clear legislative intent underlying our election laws support the well-reasoned decision of the Court of Appeal. Once a voter has abandoned his domicile, his place of residence at the close of registration is his voting domicile until such time as he actually moves on to a permanent domicile. This is true whether the voter is a student living “in the woods behind Crown College” or in a van parked on the University of California Santa Cruz “east remote parking lot”;1 a student who has left the dormitory and is staying with friends until he locates an apartment of his own; or a San Francisco city employee who has moved from the City and County of San Francisco but harbors an *17“intent” to return to make the city his permanent residence and thus claims the right to vote in his former precinct (where, by coincidence, he is able to influence his civil service benefits). None of these voters is legally entitled to vote in the precinct in which he was formerly domiciled in any election that takes place more than 28 days after he has moved. He has no recognizable interest in casting a vote on any matter that relates to his former domicile but not his present residence, and his vote should not be permitted to dilute those of persons presently domiciled in, and directly affected by, an election concerning the former domicile.
As the majority properly acknowledge, the historical perspective in which the 1976 amendments to the Elections Code,2 those governing voter residence and domicile, were enacted offers valuable insights into the intent of the Legislature. The amendments reflect the Legislature’s recognition of changes in voter demographics that had by the time of the amendments created a need to both make the franchise accessible to a more youthful and mobile population and to prevent the abuse of the franchise made possible by that very mobility. The problem of accommodating the election law to these phenomena has been described by Bruce Bolinger, the consultant to the Assembly Committee on Elections and Reapportionment, in his article California Election Law During the Sixties and Seventies: Liberalization and Centralization (28C West’s Ann. Elec. Code (1977 ed.) p. 55) (hereafter Bolinger), a document which the majority acknowledge but whose importance is not adequately considered. As Bolinger notes, the courts had already construed and applied the existing (1961) code provisions to accommodate these changes, and the purpose of the 1976 amendments to the code was to incorporate these decisions, not, as the majority would do, to overrule them.
The first demographic change, that which is reflected in the Santa Cruz election that is the subject of this controversy, followed the lowering of the voting age to 18 years. With that change, a product of the adoption in 1971 of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution,3 thousands of college students who had not theretofore been electors were permitted to register to vote. Controversy immediately erupted as to whether these students should be permitted to register in any location other than the domicile of their parents.
That controversy was promptly resolved by this court In Jolicoeur v. Mihaly (1971) 5 Cal.3d 565 [96 Cal.Rptr. 697, 488 P.2d 1]. Construing and *18applying the provisions of the 1961 code to these newly enfranchised voters, we held that 18-year-old citizens had to be treated as emancipated minors for voting purposes. We recognized the possibility that if students registered in their college communities they might control a local election even though they did not intend to remain in that location after graduation. We also recognized, however, that the Legislature had expressly prohibited exclusion of a college student from a local election if the student had abandoned his former domicile. Former section 14283, enacted as part of the 1961 code, then provided: “A person does not gain or lose residence solely by reason of his presence at or absence from a place . . . while a student of any institution of learning. . . . This section shall not be construed to prevent a student at an institution of learning from qualifying as an elector in the locality where he resides while attending that institution when in fact the student has abandoned his former residence.” (Stats. 1961, ch. 23, § 3, p. 766.)
Under the 1961 code, therefore, a college student who had left the home of his parents without intent to return, i.e., who had abandoned his former domicile, could properly register and legally vote in the community within which he resided even though that residence was temporary because the student at all times intended to move upon graduation. This was true whether the move to the college community occurred upon matriculation or a month before graduation. The dispositive fact was that the voter had abandoned his former residence. Whether he intended to make his college residence a permanent domicile was irrelevant. Until such time as the voter who had abandoned a former domicile actually established a new domicile, his domicile for voting purposes was his current place of residence—not the domicile he had abandoned.
We recognized in Jolicoeur, supra, 5 Cal.3d 565, that if former section 14283 were not construed and applied in this manner to the newly enfranchised 18- to 20-year-old voters, these persons would then be forced or permitted to cast their ballots in elections at their former domicile, elections in which they had no stake in the outcome and which they should not be permitted to influence. “The second major evil accomplished by allowing or forcing voters to vote in districts not their own is that voters of other districts have inflicted upon them a voter with no stake or interest in the outcome of the election. The extent of the evil is not only that residents of California would be asked to decide issues in Arizona or Hawaii. Small towns in California would be especially affected by such a rule, since the number of young people from the town who have left for other areas may be substantial in comparison to the town’s total population. Allowing unmarried minors who reside elsewhere to vote may effectively turn a small town over to the control of unconcerned outsiders. Over a century ago we *19recognized the wisdom of requiring voters to be residents of the jurisdiction: ‘[CJitizens . . . should not deal with public questions through the ballot box until they at least [have] the benefit of an opportunity to learn the public wants, of concerting measures the best calculated to provide for them, and of selecting proper men to carry those measures into effect; . . .’ (Bourland v. Hildreth, supra, 26 Cal. 161, 179.) Allowing minors to vote at fictional residences would compromise the integrity of the political process.” (5 Cal.3d at p. 577.) Former section 14283, of course, did not create a special registration status for college students. Its purpose was to ensure that they, like all other voters, would be free to establish a domicile at the place of their actual residence even though the intent of the voter was never that this residence would be his permanent home.
Where the majority errs is in assuming that the code does not now provide for these same persons, those whose ballots were challenged here, and other voters who have abandoned their former domiciles and whose residence at the time of an election is “temporary” because they intend at some future, but possibly indefinite, time to move on. In fact, the same provisions that were in effect at the time of our decision in Jolicoeur, supra, 5 Cal.3d 565, govern the instant case.
Sections 201 to 217 did not spring full grown from the legislative consciousness in 1976. They are no more than renumbered versions of the statutes in effect at the time of Jolicoeur, appearing then as article 3 (§§ 14280-14291) of the 1961 code. Although modified to define and substitute where appropriate “domicile” for “residence,” and to reflect current concerns regarding “sexist” use of gender references, these provisions are a continuation of the 1961 statutes which, as construed prior to their reenactment in 1961, do establish the means by which the domicile of the challenged voters is to be established and govern the proper disposition of this case. Overlooking this, the majority create a new rule, one which conflicts with the judicial construction given the prior statutes and with the legislative intent to incorporate that construction. The majority do so notwithstanding the absence of any indication that the Legislature intended to change the law in this respect and in the face of evidence that the result reached here is one which the Legislature intended to avoid.4
For ease of comparison, I set forth the relevant 1961 provisions (Stats. 1961, ch. 23, § 3, pp. 766-767) and their current counterparts with changes *20indicated, noting first that subdivision (a) of present section 200 (“Except as provided in this article, the term ‘residence* as used in this code for voting purposes means a person’s domicile,”) had no 1961 counterpart.
1961: Section 14280 — “The term of residence is computed by including the day on which the person’s residence commenced and by excluding the day of the election.”
1976: Section 201 — “The term of domicile is computed by including the day on which the person’s domicile commenced and by excluding the day of the election.”
1961: Section 14282 — “The residence of a person is that place in which his habitation is fixed and to which, whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning.”
1976: Section 200, subdivision (b) — “The domicile of a person is that place in which his or her habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning. At a given time, a person may have only one domicile.”
1961: Section 14283 — “A person does not gain or lose residence solely by reason of his presence at or absence from a place while employed in the service of the United States or of this State, nor while engaged in navigation, nor while a student of any institution of learning, nor while kept in an almshouse, asylum or prison. This section shall riot be construed to prevent a student at an institution of learning from qualifying as an elector in the locality where he resides while attending that institution, when in fact the student has abandoned his former residence.”
1976: Section 206 — “A person does not gain or lose a domicile solely by reason of his or her presence or absence from a place while employed in the service of the United States or of this state, nor while engaged in navigation, nor while a student of any institution of learning, nor while kept in an almshouse, asylum or prison. This section shall not be construed to prevent a student at an institution of learning from qualifying as an elector in the locality where he or she domiciles while attending that institution, when in fact the student has abandoned his or her former domicile.”
1961: Section 14284 — “A person who leaves his home to go into another state or precinct in this State for temporary purposes merely, with the intention of returning, does not lose his residence.”
1976: Section 202, subdivision (a) — “A person who leaves his or her home to go into another state or precinct in this State for temporary purposes merely, with the intention of returning, does not lose his or her domicile.”
*211961: Section 14285 — “A person does not gain a residence in any precinct into which he comes for temporary purposes merely, without the intention of making that precinct his home.”
1976: Section 202, subdivision (b) — “A person does not gain a domicile in any precinct into which he or she comes for temporary purposes merely, without the intention of making that precinct his or her home.”
1961: Section 14286 — “If a person removes to another state with the intention of making it his residence, he loses his residence in this State.” 1976: Section 203 — “If a person moves to another state with the intention of making it his or her domicile, the voter loses his or her domicile in this state.”
1961: Section 14287 — “If a person removes to another state as a place of permanent residence, with the intention of remaining there for an indefinite time, he loses his residence in this State, notwithstanding that he entertains an intention of returning at some future period.”
1976: Section 204 — “If a person moves to another state as a place of permanent residence, with the intention of remaining there for an indefinite time, he or she loses his or her domicile in this state, notwithstanding that he or she intends to return at some future time.”
1961: Section 14288 — “The place where a man’s family resides is his residence unless it is a place for temporary establishment for his family or for transient objects. Residence in a trailer or vehicle or at any public camp or camping ground may constitute a residence for voting purposes if the registrant complies with the other requirements of this article.”
1976: Section 207 — “The place where a person’s family is domiciled is his or her domicile unless it is a place for temporary establishment for his or her family or for transient objects.
“Residence in a trailer or vehicle or at any public camp or camping ground may constitute a domicile for voting purposes if the registrant complies with the other requirements of this article.”
1961: Section 14291 — “The mere intention to acquire a new residence, without the fact of removal avails nothing, neither does the fact of removal without the intention.”
1976: Section 205 — “The mere intention to acquire a new domicile, without the fact of removal avails nothing, neither does the fact of removal without the intention.”
A comparison of these 1961 and 1976 provisions should dispel any doubt as to the legislative intent in enacting the 1976 amendments to the code. The Legislature intended to distinguish the concept of residence for voting *22purposes from other uses of that term, and to that end adopted the term “domicile,” but to continue the substance of the 1961 provisions.
In so doing the Legislature also continued a legislative limitation on the period of time a voter could lawfully vote in the precinct of his former domicile after having abandoned that domicile. That limitation, first enacted in 1973 as section 203.5 (Stats. 1973, ch. 23, § 1, p. 41), became section 217. It now provides: “A person duly registered as a voter in any precinct in California who removes therefrom within 28 days prior to an election shall, for the purpose of such election, be entitled to vote in the precinct from which the person so removed until the close of the polls on the date of such election.” These persons, therefore, and no others, are entitled to vote in a precinct in which they are no longer domiciled.
Significantly, the majority fail to explain how the rule they adopt is to be applied to those persons who, while professing that their residence is only temporary, in fact fail over many months to acquire a new domicile. Under the majority’s rule, all that is necessary to retain the right to vote in the precinct of one’s abandoned domicile is a bona fide belief that one’s present living arrangements are only temporary, to a large extent, a subjective determination not easily refuted. How can this construction of the statute be reconciled with the legislative effort to avoid voter abuse and fraud of the type encountered in San Francisco and San Bernardino shortly before the 1976 amendments? Bolinger, supra, explained the relevance of this problem to the amendments: “Until revised and renumbered in 1976, the Elections Code defined the residence of a voter as ‘that place in which his habitation is fixed and to which, whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning.’ Determining a voter’s ‘intention’ is difficult at best and the migration of voters to suburbia seems to have aggravated the problem as became evident in San Bernardino and San Francisco during 1975 and 1976. In San Bernardino it was the migration in part of the younger generation of Mexican-Americans out of the barrio in the city’s First Ward to other areas including surrounding cities, such as Colton and Redlands, while retaining or subsequently resuming their registration in the First Ward.... In San Francisco it was the migration of literally thousands of persons from the city to towns in surrounding Bay Area counties while continuing to register and vote in San Francisco, which as the heart of a major controversy over what constituted residence and which, in turn, prompted changes in the state law on residence. . . .
“. . .It wasn’t until the San Francisco situation dramatized the problem that legislation was introduced to clarify the meaning of residence. [The change] sought to clarify the meaning of voter residence by substituting ‘domicile’ for ‘residence,’ the domicile now being the place in which the *23individual’s habitation is fixed, and to which, ‘whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning.’ ” (Bolinger, supra, pp. 83-86.) This concept of domicile cannot be reconciled with the retention of the right to vote in an abandoned domicile. It was just that approach to “residence” under the former law which the 1976 amendments sought by clarification to eliminate. The majority, however, would construe the change so as to permit the very evil the Legislature sought to overcome—large numbers of voters returning to abandoned precincts to cast their votes in elections in which they have no stake. The majority blinks at history and the factual context giving rise to the legislation.
While acknowledging the legislative history which confirms that the changes that were made in 1976 sought to incorporate some judicial decisions on the concept of domicile and residence (maj. opn. at p. 10, the majority fail to grasp the significance of those decisions. As Jolicoeur, supra, 5 Cal.3d 565, demonstrates, a voter who has abandoned his domicile acquires a new one at his place of “temporary” residence even if he does not intend that place to be his permanent residence. It is the abandonment that is crucial. He may not elect to remain in a state of suspended domiciliation by the subjective expedient of harboring hope that at some future time he will find yet another place to live.
The majority suggest that under our construction of the statutes there is no standard by which to limit the ability of a voter who claims to have left his former domicile to fraudulently register to vote in the location of his temporary residence. This concern overlooks the much greater incentive to fraud under the majority reading of the statutes. How long may a voter who is not residing in his claimed domicile continue to vote in the precinct of his former residence? How long does his actual residence remain temporary simply because he claims a subjective intent to find other, more permanent housing? The suggestion that the majority’s approach serves to avoid fraudulent registration is simply untenable. To the extent that any objective evidence of the domicile of a voter exists, it lies in his actual physical removal from his former residence and his taking up residence elsewhere. The greater incentive for fraud by far exists if the person who has removed himself and his possessions from his voting domicile to another location need only declare that he intends to move yet again.
The lengthy trial in this case, the necessity of ascertaining the subjective intent of voters no longer resident in the precincts in which they claimed the right to vote, and the impossibility of ascertaining in the individual case the point at which an “intent” not to remain in the voter’s actual residence must be recognized as nothing more than a “hope,” all underscore the wisdom of the legislative choice. The rule proposed by the majority invites *24not only fraud, but also repeated challenges and costly contest proceedings when persons long gone return to vote in the precinct of their former domiciles claiming that their present residence is “temporary” and thus is not yet a “domicile.”
The majority also fail to perceive or acknowledge that the rule they create is inconsistent with the express provision in section 204 which excludes from the ballot persons who leave the state intending to remain at their new residence for an indefinite time even if they intend at all times to return to this state; and that in section 207 which permits persons who live temporarily in public camps or camping grounds to establish a domicile at that location even though residence at such locations cannot be presumed to be permanent.
The fear of the majority that some voters may be disenfranchised upon expiration of the 28-day period for reregistration because they have not yet established a new domicile is unwarranted. Persons who fail during that period to find accommodations in which they plan to remain, are domiciled at the location of their current habitation. The Court of Appeal so held when considering the circumstances of the homeless “residents” of Santa Barbara’s Fig Tree Park in Collier v. Menzel, supra, 176 Cal.App.3d 24. The result there is consistent with that which I propose. The county registrar had refused to accept the affidavits of registration submitted by the homeless, claiming that the address was insufficient. The voters were advised that they were legally entitled to vote at their former precinct until they had established new residences. The Court of Appeal disagreed and ordered that the voters be registered at the address given on their affidavits.
Construing and applying section 200 to the situation of the homeless who claimed Fig Tree Park as their residence, the court concluded that the park was a dwelling place or place of habitation for these citizens, and that their signature on an affidavit giving the address of the park as their place of residence was sufficient to establish a present intent to remain there. The court noted the Legislature has expressly sanctioned domicile in a public camping ground, and reasoned that like a camping ground the park was “a physical area where a person can sleep and otherwise use as a dwelling place.” (176 Cal.App.3d at p. 31.) None would argue that these citizens intended to make the park their permanent home, but like the college students here, they had abandoned their former domicile, and for the indefinite future intended to return to the park after temporary absences. The park was, for voting purposes, their domicile, just as the domicile of the challenged voters here was the location at which they resided at the time of the election.
*25The construction adopted by the majority is both completely unrealistic and contrary to legislative intent. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
Lucas, C. J., and Kaufman, J., concurred.
The petition of plaintiffs and appellants for a rehearing was denied June 23, 1988.

The trial court expressed concern that the registrar of voters’ computer had refused the registration applications of the student voters who had no other address, and on that basis concluded that it was proper for them to use another campus address even though that address was in a different precinct. Permitting an elector to vote at a fictitious address is not the solution to an unlawful refusal to register a voter although such registrations were clearly the least onerous for the students. Mandamus is appropriate to compel the registrar to accept the affidavit of registration for an elector’s actual domicile. (See, e.g., Jolicoeur v. Mihaly (1971) 5 Cal.3d 565 [96 Cal.Rptr. 697, 488 P.2d 1]; Collier v. Menzel (1985) 176 Cal.App.3d 24 [221 Cal.Rptr. 110].)

 All statutory references herein are to the Elections Code.

 A similar amendment of the California Constitution followed in 1972 when section 1 (now § 2) was added to article II, providing: “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this state may vote.”

The majority suggest that permitting unsettled voters to vote in the precinct of their former domicile is necessary to avoid the danger of “forum shopping.” Forum shopping, of course, is just what the challenged voters in this case did. Assuming that such conduct is prevalent, the Legislature has determined that retaining a voting domicile in a precinct in which the voter no longer lives and to which he does not intend to return is the greater of the two possible evils.