Rauth v. Ward

McSiierry, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. We think the Court below was right in its ruling in this case. The sole question involved is whether one John P. ²⁰² Downin was entitled to vote at the municipal election held in Hagerstown on the fourth Monday of March, 1897 ; and its solution depends altogether upon whether he possessed the requisite legal residence in the ward in which it is insisted he had the right to vote. By the charter of the city as amended by the Act of 1892, ch. 36, the qualifications of voters are prescribed.

There are several provisions relative thereto which must be briefly stated. Sec. 156 B declares that the male citizens of Hagerstown of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, who shall be duly registered and who have resided in the State of Maryland and in the said town for twelve months and in the ward six months preceding an election shall be entitled to register, “ provided always that where any person shall be legally registered in any of said wards, and shall remove therefrom to any other of said wards, and remain therein, he shall be entitled to have his name remain on the registry list of the ward from which he shall remove as aforesaid, and to vote therein until he shall reside in the ward to which he shall have removed and remain therein a sufficient time to entitle him to register therein.” Sec. 159 enacts that the qualifications of the voters for Councilmen shall be the same as for Mayor, “ provided the voters shall have resided for six months next preceding the election in the ward in which he offers to vote.” The same section then proceeds “ and in case of removal or until such residence is acquired, the voter must vote in the ward from which he has removed, and in which he is a qualified elector.” And sec. 159 K requires that the voter shall be “ a resident of Hagerstown one year and of the ward in which he may offer to vote for six months next preceding the election.” It is quite clear that primarily there must be a residence of twelve months in the town and of six months in the ward to entitle a party to register and vote ; and there are super-added provisos designed to meet the contingency of a removal from one ward to another in the interim between registrations. These provisos do no more than preserve ²⁰³ the right to vote in the ward where the voter has been legally registered if he should remove therefrom into another ward less than six months prior to a municipal election. It was designed that such a removal should not defeat the right to vote in the ward from which the voter had removed until by a sufficiently long residence in the ward to which he removed he had gained the right to register and vote therein.

But it does not seem to us that these provisions allow the voter’s name to remain either indefinitely upon the registration books of a ward from which he has removed, or to remain there after he has been absent from the ward long enough to acquire the necessary residence in some other ward. ' Whilst the predominant object of all registration laws is to secure and not to defeat the right of suffrage, a no less important purpose to be subserved by them is to guarantee fair and honest elections by lessening the opportunities for fraudulent and illegal voting. The provision requiring a residence in a ward for a definite period was obviously devised to prevent impositions by persons having no fixed abode ; and though the mere fact of a removal from one ward to another is not enough to disqualify unless the absence consequent upon the removal has been of sufficient duration to enable the voter to acquire the requisite residence elsewhere before another election occurs ; there is no provision which permits the name of a voter who has removed from a ward to continue upon the registration books of that ward until he has actually registered elsewhere. All the sections taken together obviously contemplate that the right to vote in a particular ward shall