Court Opinion

ID: 9560802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:56:30.353245+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:12.847068
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Justice
(dissenting).
Title 19 O.S.1951 § 132, provides as follows:
“No person shall be eligible to any county office unless he shall be, at the time of his election or appointment, a qualified voter of the county.”
Article III, Olcla. Constitution, Sec. 1, provides as follows:
“Qualified electors of this State shall be citizens of the United States, citizens of this State, including persons of Indian descent, (native of the United States), who are over the age of twenty-one years and who have resided in the State one year, in the county six months, and in the election precinct thirty days next preceding the election at which such elector offers to vote. Provided, that no person adjudged guilty of a felony, subject to such exceptions as the legislature may prescribe, nor any person kept in a poor house at public expense, except Federal, Confederate and Spanish-American ex-*787soldiers or sailors, nor any person in a public prison, nor any idiot or lunatic, shall be entitled to register and vote.”
Title 26 O.S.19S1 § 61, provides in part as follows :
“The qualified electors of the state shall be male citizens of the United States, male citizens of the state, and male persons of Indian descent, natives of the United States who- are over the age of twenty-one years who have resided in the state one year, in the county six months, and in the election precinct thirty days next preceding the election at which any elector offers to vote. Provided, that no person adjudged guilty of a felony after the adoption of the Constitution of this state, subject to such exceptions as the Legislature may prescribe, unless his citizenship shall have been restored in the manner provided by law; nor any person while kept in a poor house or asylum at the public expense, except Federal and -Confederate ex-soldiers; nor any person in the public prison, nor any idiot or lunatiG, nor shall any person be allowed to vote in any election held herein, unless he is able to read and write any section of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma * *
The latter statute has been, in effect, amended by Article XIX of the Constitution of the United States.
Both the Constitution and our statute, above quoted, provide that unless and as the legislature prescribes exceptions, no person adjudged guilty of a felony shall be entitled to register and vote unless his citizenship shall have been restored in the manner provided by law.
It is true that one adjudged guilty of either of certain felonies has a right of appeal and to be free upon filing and approval of a supersedeas bond and the effectiveness of his conviction is thereby and to that extent stayed.
However, until the legislature may so specifically provide, I am of the opinion that one standing under the shadow of such a conviction has been adjudged guilty of a felony to the extent of disqualifying him from voting and from holding county office under the foregoing authorities.
In 29 C.J.S. Elections § 33b, it is stated,
“When an accused is convicted, his disqualification as an elector attaches immediately, and such disqualification is not suspended by his appeal and the furnishing of a supersedeas bond.” See Olson v. Langer, 65 N.D. 68, 256 N.W. 377 and 20 C.J. Elections, sec. 45, note 25 and cases there cited.
I therefore respectfully dissent.