THE THAMES ADVERTISER
(The following article is in same paper as the publication of OBJECTIONS to the 1876 Electoral Roll)
Source:
Copy of Newspaper at Thames Library, Mackay Street, Thames
The Registration of Electors Act, 1875,
directs that the clerk of every municipality or Road Board shall prepare on the
31st March in each year an alphabetical list of all male persons of
twenty-one years of age or upwards, who have been assessed, and have paid any
rate struck by such governing body within the year ending the 30th
March. These lists are to be prepared
and sent to the respective Registration Officers, countersigned by the mayors
or Chairmen of Boards, as the case may be, as a guarantee that the clerical
work of preparing the lists has been properly performed, and, and that they are
in accordance with the form prescribed by the Act. This change in the law was probably intended by the General
Assembly to extend the franchise very considerably, as it introduces a new
basis for a claim to vote, and one which is not mentioned in the Constitution
Act. Under that Act the necessary
qualification is set forth as the possession of freehold, leasehold, or
household property, which must have been held for a fixed – period, and must be
of a specified value. And to obtain a
vote the possessor of the necessary qualification must himself make application
under his own signature to be placed upon the electoral roll. But the Act passed last session makes every
ratepayer who has paid his rates within the specified period a voter, without
any effort or application on his part.
It was clearly intended to merely supplement the present lists of voters
by adding to them the names of all the ratepayers who are not at present on the
electoral rolls.
We believe
that this is really the common sense reading of the Act. It was certainly not the intention of the
Assembly to interfere in any way with the existing rights of those who have
been duly registered and who have been duly registered and who have not changed
or altered in any manner their qualifications, because it would be folly to
make such an alteration in the law for the mere sake of placing men upon the
roll as ratepayers and striking them off as householders, leaseholders, or
freeholders. And for this reason we
believe the objections made by the Registration Officer for this district
should have been made against the ratepayer, and not the freeholder, in this
case where a person is already on the roll for a qualification which he still
retains. Were the present objections
sustained, a serious injustice might be done to a person who neglected another
year to pay his rates within the time specified by the Act. His name would not be placed in the official
list sent to the Registration Officer, and he would consequently be
disfranchised for his carelessness, after having been registered for perhaps a
dozen years under one of the qualifications specified in the Constitution Act.
It may
perhaps be argued that the “ratepayer” qualification is virtually a “new
claim,” and under the law to prevent a person from being placed twice upon the
roll for the same qualification, it is necessary to object to the old one. But we believe that such an interpretations
is wrong, and cannot be upheld. It is
the only reason that we are able to discover for the long string of objections
to old qualifications raised by the Registration Officer, but we hear that the
question will be ventilated before the Revising Officer. It certainly is not
desirable to allow the “ratepayer” qualification to be substituted for those
named and those provided for in the Constitution Act, because if this were
permitted, and a clerk should unfortunately omit to send in the list of
ratepayers another year, or should make a blunder in compiling it, many
hundreds of people would be disenfranchised through no fault of theirs, but
solely because some official had neglected his duty.