66 Md. 227 | Md. | 1886
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is brought up as upon writ of error. The plaintiff in error having been appointed the officer of registration under the Act of 1882, ch. 22, for the twelfth ward of the City of Baltimore, was indicted for violating several provisions of that statute. The indictment contained seven counts, to each of which a general demurrer
The penal clause of the Act involved is that part of the 3áth section which makes it a misdemeanor punishable with fine or imprisonment or both, “if any officer of registration shall do any act which is by this Act forbidden to he by him done, or shall omit to do any act which is by this Act required to he by him done.” The fifth count is founded upon- that part of the 21st section which requires each officer of registration within three days after the expiration of his September sitting, and within the same time after his October sitting, to “make, • complete and publish two alphabetical lists, one of which shall comprise ihe names of those persons whom” he has “stricken from” the registry of qualified voters, and the other “shall comprise the names and residences of the persons whom” he has “newly registered as qualified voters” at his preceding sitting, and also the names of those whom the Judges have ordered to he registered, and “shall cause said respective lists to he published by handbills posted in such public places as he may select in his election district or election precinct.” The count charges in substance that “John E. Mincher being then and there the officer of registration for the twelfth ward of said city, duly appointed and qualified, unlaiufully did make, complete and publish an alphabetical list within three days after the expiration of his September sitting” in the year 1885, “which said list purported to comprise the names of those persons whom he had stricken from the registry of voters of the first precinct of the said twelfth ward, and did cause the said list to he published by hand-bills posted in divers public places in said ward, which said list made, completed and published by him as aforesaid, unlawfully comprised, besides
1st. The first is in substance that the alleged conduct of the officer of registration as set forth in this fifth count is not an offence under section 21 taken in connection with section 34, nor under any other section of the Registration Act of 1882. But we do not think this point is well taken. The Constitution (Art. 1, sec. 5,) required the General Assembly to provide by law for a uniform registration of the names of all the voters in the State, and made such registration conclusive evidence to the judges of election of the right of every person thus registered to vote, and declared that no person shall vote at any election unless his name appears in the list of registered voters. The law of 1882. is the last general Act passed in pursuance of this requirement, and it repeals all previous laws on the same subject inconsistent therewith. A statute of this character, dealing as it does with the right of suffrage, is of the utmost importance to all the citizens of the State. One of the great objects sought to be attained, as well by the framers of tire Constitution, as by the Legislature, manifestly was the securing of fair and honest elections by means of a system of registration of voters. The statute then must be construed by the Courts in the light of this manifest legislative intention, and all its directions to, and requirements of, the officers who are to execute it, must be regarded as important, and as having this object in view.
3rd. The third and fourth assignments are that the count is defective because it does not aver that the officer of registration acted either wilfully, fraudulently, or corruptly in doing what is charged against him. The argument in support of this objection is that officers of registration while acting in discharge of their duties as such, are, like judges of election, acting in a quasi judicial capacity, and are therefore not responsible either civilly or
Judgment affirmed.