Gibson v. Board of Commissioners

79 S.E. 976, 163 N.C. 510, 1913 N.C. LEXIS 204

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: November 12, 1913
• Status: Published

Opinion

Allen, J.

Several irregularities in the registration of voters appear in the record, but counsel for the plaintiffs properly admit that none of them are sufficient to vitiate the election unless the- failure to administer an oath to those offering themselves for registration has this effect.

The question is important, presenting as it does, on one hand the possibility of admitting as voters those not legally qualified, if the requirements of the law are not observed, and on the other, making it possible for registrars, by neglect or fraud, to disfranchise an entire electorate.

In this case there is no evidence of any improper motive on the part of the registrar or of any of the officers connected with the election, but the principle declared cannot be confined to this case, and will be authority in many others.

We have given the question careful consideration, and have concluded, in the interest of a free and full expression of the popular will, to abide by the precedent heretofore established in this Court, and to sustain the election.

In Quinn v. Lattimore, 120 N. C., 426, it was held that the' requirement as to the administration of an oath to the elector before registration was directed to the registrar, and that “Where a registrar of election registers a person entitled, under the Constitution and laws, to vote, but through inadvertence or fraud fails to administer the oath required to be administered, such person shall not be for that reason deprived of his vote.”

It is true that in the Lattimore case all the names on the registration books were not involved, as in this ease; but if the principle is admitted as to one voter, it must logically apply to all.

In 15 Cyc., 307, the author adopts the doctrine of this case, and says: “Statutes prescribing the mode of proceeding of public officers are regarded as directory unless there is something in the statute which shows a different intent. Hence, as a general rule, a statute prescribing the powers and duties of registration officers should not be so construed as to make the right to vote by registered voters depend upon a strict observance by the registrars of all the minute directions of the statute in preparing the voting list, and thus render the constitutional right of suffrage liable to be defeated, without the fault of the elector, by the fraud, caprice, ignorance, or negligence of the registrars; for if an exact compliance by these officers with all statutory directions should be deemed essential to the right of an elector to vote, elections would often fail, and electors would be deprived without their fault of an opportunity to vote. A constitutional or statutory provision that no one shall be entitled to register without first taking an oath to support the Constitution of the State and that of the United States is directed to the registrars, and to them alone; and if they through inadvertence register a qualified voter, who- is entitled to register and vote, without administering the prescribed oath to him, he cannot be deprived of his right to vote through this negligence of the officers.”

We therefore hold that the election was valid, and that the restraining order ought to have been dissolved.

Affirmed.