Rawlings v. Russell

Urher, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County correctly decided in this case that a registration of voters and a primary election could not be legally held in Annapolis on the second Monday of June in the present year, as provided by chapter 120 of the Acts of 1933. That act purported, by the repeal and re-enactment with amendments of sections 1, 3, 4 and 8 of article 2 of the Code of Public Local Laws, to redefine the corporate limits of Annapolis, to abolish the elective office of counselor of the municipality, and substitute the appointive office of city attorney, to' change the corporate ²⁶³ name from mayor, counselor and aldermen to mayor and aldermen of the City of Annapolis, to enlarge from two to three years the terms of office of the mayor and aldermen, to change the date of the municipal elections from the second to the first Monday of July in each year for which an election was provided, and the date for the primary election for the nomination of candidates from the third Monday of June to the third Tuesday of April, except in the year 1933, and to change the dates for the registration of voters, and revision of the registries, from the second and third Mondays of May to the second and third Tuesdays of March, except in the year 1933, and to change from the second Monday of April biennially to the second Tuesday of February triennially the date for the appointment, by the mayor and aldermen, of three supervisors of election, by whom the city registration and election officials were to be selected. It was provided by the amending act that in the year 1933 the dates for the registration of voters and revision of the registries should be the second and third Mondays of June, and that the primary election for the nomination of candidates should also be held on the second Monday of that month.

Prior to June 1st, 1933, when the Act of 1933 was by its terms to become effective, a registration of the voters of Annapolis had been made and revised in accordance with the statutory provisions then in force, but after the 1st of June the supervisors of election previously appointed were providing for a registration and a primary election to be held simultaneously on the second Monday of June, as the Act of 1933 directed. In this proceeding the effort to hold the proposed registration and primary election on that date was successfully resisted. It is clear that the provision for conducting the specified registration and primary election on the same day was impractical and invalid. The registration directed for that day was not intended to be final, but was subject to revision a week later.

That revision might result in the elimination of many registrants from the list compiled on the preceding ²⁶⁴ Monday. Challenges of voting qualifications could not' be decided on the first day of the registration, but would have to be reserved until the day of revision. Participants in a primary election on the second Monday of June, all of whom would have been registered during the coincident voting period, might include a number of voters whose names would be removed from the registries, under the prescribed revision, because they were proved to be disqualified to vote in the election. The result of the primary contest might be determined by the votes of persons thus found to have had no right to participate.

This would involve the further serious possibility that the voters in the subsequent municipal election would be required to choose between candidates whose nomination was accomplished in the primary election by a minority of the participating qualified voters. In view of these considerations, we have not been able to regard the provision for a concurrent registration and primary election as a feasible and valid enactment. The fact that an absence of competition for the nominations might obviate a primary election does not overcome the objection to the validity of the provision. It is void because of the invalidating effect which its prescribed and complete operation would produce.

Curtis v. Mactier, 115 Md. 386 , 80 A. 1066 ; Grote v. Rogers, 158 Md. 685, 694 , 149 A. 547 . There remains the important question as to how far the invalidity of that provision affects the legislation of which it forms a part. The effect of our decision is that no election of municipal officers can be held under the Act of 1933. An election could not be held, under that act, without a preceding registration of voters, and none can be authorized under it for any date other than that which the act invalidly attempted to designate.

But it was the repeatedly expressed purpose of the Act of 1933 that there should be an election in July of that year for executive and legislative officers for the city of Annapolis. While, in default of such an election, the city would not be without a government, as the incumbent officers, whose terms expire in July, 1933, would con ²⁶⁵ túrne to serve in their respective capacities until the election and qualification of their successors (Benson v. Mellor, 152 Md. 481 , 131 A. 294 ), yet it is perfectly manifest that such a contingency was not contemplated when the Act of 1933 was drafted. The nullification of its