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that mark of membership in the political state, which we call the right to vote. This they may do in general terms or in detail. Most commonly they pursue the former method and leave to the legislature the task of making statutory provisions for the details necessary to deciding who shall vote and how the right shall be exercised. The Constitution of the United States originally left the matter of deciding who had a right to vote to the states. It took the Civil War to change this, and the Fifteenth Amendment forbids discrimination by the state on account of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Though this has remained to a considerable extent a dead letter, it is an assertion of the right of the Federal Government to override the power of the states when occasion demands. The Federal Government may yet find it necessary to forbid any who are not citizens. of the United States from voting in elections of federal officers. At present a great many who are not citizens of the United States but have merely declared their intention to become such are permitted by the states to vote in state and federal elections. The time, place, and manner of holding elections is left to the states except that the day for choosing presidential electors shall be the same throughout the United States, and the place of choosing United States senators may not be changed, by the states.

12. Registration.-When not forbidden by the Constitution, the legislature has power to pass registration laws excluding from participation in the election those who fail to comply with such laws. This is considered a legitimate means of regulating

the exercise of the elective franchise and preventing corruption in elections. But it must be bona fide for the purpose of regulation, and not disfranchisement under the guise of regulation. As said by Chief Justice Thompson in Page v. Allen: "The right must not be impaired by the regulation. It must be regulation purely, not destruction. The regulation must be subordinate to the right to be regulated." Registration laws do not add to the constitutional qualifications; as such provisions respecting the qualifications of voters must contemplate the application of reasonable methods for the purpose of preventing fraud and imposition upon election officials. They provide a means of examining into the voter's claim to a right to vote. And if the Constitution "has made no provision in regard to the time, place, and manner in which such examination shall be had, and yet such an examination is necessarily incident to the actual enjoyment and exercise of the right of voting, it constitutes one of those subjects respecting the mode of exercising the right in relation to which it is competent for the legislature to make suitable and reasonable regulations not calculated to defeat or impair the right of voting, but rather to facilitate and secure the exercise of that right." 23 These general principles have been recognized by the courts of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Mississippi. But in White v. County Commis

23 58 Pa. St. 338; Capen v. Foster, 12 Pick. 485 (Mass.), opinion of Chief Justice Shaw; Kinneen v. Wells, 144 Mass. 497, LEADING ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.

sioners, the Supreme Court of Oregon held that where the Constitution prescribes the qualifications of voters, a statute imposing the additional requirement of registration is unconstitutional.

13. Question of reasonableness.-If, then, a provision of a registration law is reasonable, the weight of authority in this country is that it is not unconstitutional unless expressly forbidden by the Constitution. But for the purpose of determining whether or not a particular provision in a registration act is reasonable only the most general rules can be laid down. Where a person is required to take an oath embracing a qualification different from that prescribed in the Constitution, and is refused registration unless such oath is taken, such requirement is unconstitutional and void.25 The same is true of a provision requiring an oath that he has not been guilty of certain acts, the effect of which would be to forfeit his right of suffrage.26 But it is not unlawful to require him to take an oath as to residence, citizenship, or the like,27 provided he is not required to supplement his own oath by the oath of others as to his qualifications. A provision requiring one who had been absent from the state for a specified length of time to present a certificate showing that he had been continuously on the tax list is unconstitutional in states having no property qualifications for voting. Likewise a provision requiring one who had been absent from the state for six months to be reg

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istered at least ninety days before the election would be unconstitutional where the length of residence in the precinct is fixed by the Constitution at thirty days.28 And in State v. Corner29 it was held that a registration law requiring one to be registered ten days before election was unreasonable, where no provision at all was made for registration on election day.

A like view has been taken by the courts of Ohio and Wisconsin. But the courts of Illinois, Rhode Island, and Georgia, have taken an opposite view. In Attorney General ex rel. Coneley v. Common Council the Supreme Court of Michigan declared unconstitutional such a statute passed in July, 1889, on the ground that it would disfranchise persons necessarily absent from the city on the date fixed by the act for registration and those moving from one ward to another between that date and election. The court says:

"These authorities all tend in one direction. They hold that the legislature has a right to reasonably regulate the right of suffrage, as to the manner and time and place of voting, and to provide all necessary and reasonable rules to establish and ascertain by proper proof the right to vote of any person offering his ballot, but has no power to restrain or abridge the right, or unnecessarily to impede its free exercise. This law before us disfranchises every person too ill to attend the board of registration, and unreasonably and unnecessarily requires persons whose business duties, public or private, are outside of Detroit, to 28 Morris v. Powell, 125 Ind. 281.

29 22 Nebr. 265.

30 78 Mich. 545.

return home to register as well as to vote, making two trips when only one ought to be required. In my opinion, no registry law is valid which deprives an elector of his constitutional right to vote by any regulation with which it is impossible for him to comply. No elector can lose his right to vote, the highest exercise of the freeman's will, except by his own fault or negligence. If the legislature, under the pretext of regulation, can destroy this constitutional right by annexing an additional qualification as to the number of days such voter must reside within a precinct before he can vote therein, or any other requisite, in direct opposition to any of the constitutional requirements, then it can as well require of the elector entirely new qualifications, independent of the Constitution, before the right of suffrage can be exercised. If the exigencies of the times are such, which I do not believe, that a fair and honest election cannot be held in Detroit, or in any other place in our state, without other qualifications and restrictions upon both native-born and naturalized citizens than those now found in or authorized by the Constitution, then the remedy is with the people to alter such Constitution by the lawful methods pointed out and permitted by that instrument."

14. Minority representation and cumulative voting. In order to give the minority representation in legislatures and on administrative boards a number of devices have been resorted to, but the difficulty can hardly be considered as having been satisfactorily solved. Unless provision is made in the state constitution, it is not certain that the legislature has the power. The Supreme Court of Ohio in State v. Constantine31 held unconstitutional a statute pro

31 42 Ohio St. 437.

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