AMENDMENT OF TIIE ELECTORAL REGISTRATION.
LETTER SECOND.
TO THE EDITOR, OF THE SPECTATOR.
Lewes, 17th November 135. SIR—I proceed to suggest several amendments in the present system of Electoral Registration in Boaouons. Although very great and general complaints have been made in consequence of the negligence and partiality of Borough Overseers in making out the voters lists, yet it would be difficult to discover any parties so well conversant 14 Rh the fact of occupation, on which the right of voting chiefly depends; and if the checks on their conduct, which are now proposed, should be applied, they would find little opportunity of injury, and might be easily detected owl punished. As the Clerk ol' the Peace would have to scud to the Overseers of each parish a circular containing an epitome of their duties in County registrations, he might with little additioual trouble at the same time send the Borough Overseers an epitome of their duty in the Borough registrations. This would remind them of their annual burden, and insure uniformity and regularity. To prevent the continual irritation, which is now very general, the whole of the rate- paying clauses should be repealed. Their existence places an almost unlimited political power in the hands of the Overseers. These dances are no test of respectability or fit- ness for the exercise of the elective franchise. It Hot unfrequently happens, that the payment of rates and taxes is delayed by the most opulent persons ; indeed it is said that even Mr. BERNAL, the. Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, was this year disfranchised, from the non.payment of his Assessed Taxes. The law has placed ample power iu the hands of the Collectors of the Pour-rates.and Assessed faxes to recover their demands ; and should the amounts remain unpaid fur any length of time, the fault rests entirely with those officers. It is absurd to suppose that any great num- ber ofpersons, who live in let. houses, would entirely escape the payment of rates, through the lenity of the parisleofficers, did not the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Act step in and prevent it; and cons smently that any more insolvent persons would be found in the electoral body than now app ar on the register. The retaiuing of these clauses pit es rise to all the intriti to questions of actual and virtual rating. which have engrossed so mouth of the lime in ow Revising Barris'ers' Courts. Besides, the annual payment of rates and tares on a day cart tin, has opetie I the door to annual bribery to a very large amount. The pourer ve ens know that they ne • I take no pain; to pay up llwir rates; because their votes in eve y boroagh. where there is any chance of a con- test. will Ise worth at least that sum ; and that, to keep up their ight to vote, the leaders of the party will be ready to ad auce before the 2eth July the sales then due. I speak fro-n urinal kntne.'erige, when I ass. rt that the payment of tales is fact bec tming a I-, iglefel soiree of bribery and domoratlis Con. But, &apposing that the L slatura shalt not think proper to repeal these clanot s, yet a 'tulle. should be given to :toe Writ 'nue to the rate-payers, stating the necessity f paying thAr rates iat 1.:00.6 before the 20111 July. At.d the scot and lit eleeturs situ, Id lie indeed ea au equal footiuj with the LOS voters.—i. e. should only have to pay before the 20th July all rates and taxes read • previous to the 6th April. At present they must pay on or before the 30th July all rates which have been made and demauded up to that day ; so that a rate may be made a day or two before the 30th, be demanded on that the last day, and if not paid the same day, the scot and lot voter will be disfranchised. A fearful power of oppres- sion and disfranchisement to leave in the hands of Overseers. If the decision in the New Windsor case be confirmed, this process may be repeated on the eve of an election; for, according to that decision. the scot and lot voter must pay all rates made and de- manded previous to the day of election. The 10k qualification has given an immensity of trouble, and endless have been the questions of value; which have by no means been decreased by the unity of the opinions of Surveyors on the value of the same property. If every house were rated to its full value in the parish-hooks, and these were to be taken as the criterion, electors would soon see that their houses were entered at a euflicient andsum, t there would be little question of the fact. This, however, is not the ease; and as the real value is so difficult a thing to be ascertained, it would be a vast simplification of the registratiou- maehinery, if a household qualification were substituted. The signification of the cord "building," when used with land, has been stretched to its furthest limit, and a host of mushroom voters have sprung up in the neighbour- hood of most towns. It has even been held, that four posts stuck into the ground, with a few planks placed at irregular distances ut the top, is a building %Rhin the meaning of the act. Lord June RUSSELL'S Bill proposed to limit this right to a "farm- ing building ;" but this would be but a trifling remedy. The best method will be to declare that the building should be the primary object of occupation; or, if the 101. qualification be retained, that it must be worth at least 51. per annum. Various have been the decisions as to the method of computing the distance of seven miles from any borough. It has been ruled by some to mean by the nearest turnpike road; by others, by the nearest way a person could go without committing a trespass; whilst others have contended, that it means as the " crow tlits" A similar point in clause 9 of the Municipal Corporation Reform Act is decided by substituting the words by the nearest public road or way, by land or water;" but in addition to the nar- rowing of the franchise, this decision is open to the serious objection that roads are being constantly altered. and that a person may therefore have a good right one year whilst in the next he may be deprived of it because a short length has been added to the road. The most satisfactory method would be to have the boundaries of all boroughs marked on the Ordnance Survey, and at a distance of seven miles parallel lines drams and enact that a copy of the survey so marked should be deposited with the rotundas officer of each borough. This would never vary, and could always be readily referred to- After a person has been registered. no change from one house to another of the re- quired value within the same borough, between the times of registration and election, ought to deprive him of his franchise; yet such a change has been decided, by nearly every Election Committee, to disfranchise him. I much question whether every person on the register ought not to be allowed to vote : they must all have gone through one year's previous ordeal, and been duly qualified during the s hole of that period; they ought therefore in justice to be allowed to exercise the franehise. The only objection which can reasonably be urged against the latter suggestion is, that one of the leading features of the Reform Act was to eat off all outliving voters. and that registered per- sons might remove to a great distance, and thus create a body of umeresideut electors ; which has ever been found a great evil. Notices of objection, specifying the ground of objection, in Boroughs as in Counties, should be given to the parties objected to, as well as to the Overseers. At present the party can only discover by an actual iuspectiou of the published lists, that he is ob- jected to; but he ought to have specific notice, that he may prepare his defence. The payment of the shilling for registration should be dispensed with in Boronehs as well as in Counties. As it is payable annually iu the former, it is still more objec- tionable than in the latter. The observations made in any last tether as to the powers to summon witnesses to award costs and send notices by post, the substitution of places of worship for churches and chapels, the lowering of the penalty on Overseers neglecting their duty, and the annual printing of the register, apply equally to Borough and County registrations. In both, a stop should be put to the power of disfranchisement given to Overseers through the non-signing of the original lists, or the improper publication of lists of ob- lections. l'Ile power should not be left in the hands of Overseers to disfranchise, as an East Somerset, whole parishes; or, by an imperfect description of persons or pro- perty in the lists of objections, to throw a shield over and prevent the examination Into decidedly bad votes. To remedy these defects, the signature of the original lists should be declared to be merely directory ; that in all cases, in Counties, the Banisters should revise the old register, copies of which will have been transmitted to each parish, without any inquiry as to the fact of signature or publication; and should it appear that the new list has not been duly published, then that he should said to the old list the names of such persons as have sent in claims, and who shall appear before Mtn and prove their right. This would nearly assimilate the course to be pursued iu Counties where the Overseers had neglected their duties, to the course its Boroughs when parties have been omitted from the original lists; and would not facilitate the retaining of bad votes even in the case of the non-publication of the lists, because every person would know that all the names on the last year's register must be inserted In the new lists. anti notices of objection might be given to all bad votes, whilst no bad claimant would• be admitted because he must attend and prove his right before the Revising Barrister. In Boroughs, the fact of a copy of the list produced before the Barrister having appeared at the proper times, at the proper places, and placed there by the proper authorities, should be sufficient to enable the Barrister to receive it, al- though it may turn out to have been improperly signed. In both County sand Borough, —as. according to these suggestions a notice of objection must be given to the party objected to, and he will therefore in all eases know that he must prove his qualiticatiots —the Barrister should be compelled to entertain the objection on proof of the service of the notices, however informal the Overseers' lists of objections may happen to be. For want of this compulsion, Barristers have refused to enter into the merits of objec- tions where there was any variation between the original lists and the lists of objections, although the notices of objection were strictly correct, although the parties objected to were actually in court, and although the discrepancy between the two lists was the voluntary or negligent act of the Overseer; and thus means have been afforded to Overseers to defeat at pleasure objections to any votes however bad. At the same time, a penalty. easily recoverable, should be placed on Overseers neglecting the due publi- cation or signature of the several lists. The hours during the two Sundays on which the lists are to appear on the doors of the different places of worship. should also be specified,—say between nine a. ,s. and nine re. At present the appearance of the lists may take place at any time on the two Sundays; for Revising Barristers have gone the length of deciding, if they appear at any time however short on each of those days, although persons have gone at eleven o'clock in the morning purposely to see them, and could not then fund them, yet that this is a sufficient publication. I need not say that the door to great fraud is here also opened. In no case should Overseers be allowed to withdraw objections made in their official capacity. Seeing that a voter is objected to by the Overseers• many persons deem a notice of objection from themselves superfluous ; and, as before the Revising Barrister. now the Overseers may think proper to withdraw their objection ; and it having been decided that no person can take up another's objection, many bad votes are easily sus- tained. In Boroughs, the Overseers of the previous year should be obliged to attend before the Barristers, and to produce their books. At present the Overseers, who come into office only on the previous 25th March, make out the lists, and are alone compelled to attend the Courts for their revision ; and consequently it is very difficult to get at facts which occurred during the first nine months of the year. In all cases, the Overseers should be compelled to deliver to the Revising Barristers, In addition to copies of all the lists made out by them. the original notices of claim and objection, and thus by comparison their errors may easily be corrected. These are the points which require immediate correction. I do not pretend to have suggested all the alterations in the present machinery which are desirable: such as I have mentioned in my two letters have occurred during an experience of four years in the Registration Courts in this town and neighbourhood d; and should any per- son be able to furnish additional suggestions, he would, I conceive, be materially bene- fiting the public by stating them. I had intended penning a few lines on the importance of rendering the Election Committees merely courts of appeal from the Revising Banisters' Courts, limiting the Jurisdiction to cases objected to in the Revision Courts, yet by no means limiting the evidence to be given before the Appeal Court to that heard before the Barristers,—and not, as proposed in Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S Bill, to open the Election Committees to an Inquiry into all the names on the register, at a great waste of time, and at a ruinous expense. But. finding that my limits are exceeded, I must conclude with wishing that the subject of Electoral Registration may meet with the early attention of the Legisla-
ture. And I remain, Sir, your most obedient servant,
WILLIAM DURRANE COOPED..
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