Turner v. Crosby

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, David H. Turner, applied to the appellees, William Crosby and Lloyd E. Dorsey, registers of voters of the Fourth Election District qf Anne Arundel County, at their September sitting, in the year 1896, to be registered as a qualified voter of that district. He was refused registration and thereupon appealed to the Circuit Court for that county. The decision of the officers of registration having been affirmed he has appealed to this Court.

Turner testified that he was born in Baltimore City, but moved with his father to the Fourth Election District of Anne Arundel County when an infant, and was now thirty-three years of age; that he first registered in this district when he was twenty-one, and had voted there ever since, and had never claimed a residence elsewhere. In answer to the question whether he ever tried to register or ever voted in any other place, he stated that “ I have not and never desired. I am a builder, and my business, being away from the county, I am so situated that I have to go from one place to another; for instance, if I have a house to build in one place I go to that place to attend to it, and stay wherever it is most convenient; my wife and child have been in the county since the 14th day of May until the first of October; at present I am in Baltimore, and since the 14th of May I have run backwards and forwards to the county every night; I don’t think I was away any night; I might have been; I would have come sooner, but my wife has been sick and I could not bring her away; in attending to business we cannot come backward and forward at any time, as the first train leaves Odenton at a quarter of seven, and we ought to be at work in Baltimore at seven ¹⁸⁰ o’clock.” He further testified, “that he could not go before a register in Baltimore or any other place and swear that he desired to become a resident of that place or desired to change his residence, for he had no such intention.” There was other evidence tending to show that he was absent from the county while learning his trade and while engaged in business at different places, but it was always with an intention to return to Anne Arundel County, where he was residing at the time of his application for registration. The Court below was