Hall v. Beals

Decision Date29 November 1968
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. C-1111.
Citation292 F. Supp. 610
PartiesRichard HALL and Christine Hall, Plaintiffs, v. Harriet BEALS, Clerk and Recorder of El Paso County, and Bess Titus, Election Supervisor of El Paso County, Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Colorado

Quigley, Wilder, Helwig & Palermo, Richard V. Hall, Colorado Springs, Colo., for plaintiffs.

Robert L. Russel, Dist. Atty., by Bernard R. Baker and Carroll E. Multz, Deputy Dist. Attys., El Paso, County, Colorado Springs, Colo., John P. Moore, Deputy Atty. Gen., State of Colorado, for defendants.

Before HILL, Circuit Judge, KERR, Chief District Judge, and DOYLE, District Judge.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

WILLIAM E. DOYLE, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, seek to enjoin the enforcement, execution and administration of the provisions of Colorado Revised Statutes 1963, § 49-24-1.1 This prohibits a resident of the State of Colorado from voting in elections for the President and Vice-President of the United States unless such resident has resided within the State of Colorado for a period of "not less than six months next preceding the election at which he offers to vote."2

The six months residency requirement for voting for the President and Vice-President of the United States is a recently enacted exception to the basic requirement of one year's residency for voting in all other elections in Colorado.3 The plaintiffs seek to vote only for the President and Vice-President of the United States and, therefore, only § 49-24-1 of the Colorado Statutes is challenged in this case.

Plaintiffs are over the age of twenty-one years, citizens of the United States, and have been residents of El Paso County, Colorado, since June 15, 1968.4 Plaintiffs moved to El Paso County from Contra Costa County, California, where they previously resided and had been registered to vote. In an effort to vote in the election for President and Vice-President of the United States on November 5, 1968, plaintiffs applied for absentee ballots from the State of California, but they were advised by the Contra Costa County election officials that they would not be allowed to vote in California because they were no longer residents of the State of California. On or about August 1, 1968, the plaintiff, Richard Hall, went to the office of the County Clerk and Recorder for El Paso County and requested that he and his wife be allowed to vote there in the election for President and Vice-President of the United States. The registration officials informed the plaintiff that he and his wife would not be allowed to register to vote in the November 5, 1968 election, because of failure to satisfy the residence requirements of the State of Colorado.

Plaintiff then wrote to the Secretary of State of California stating that he would not be allowed to vote in Colorado and requesting that he and his wife be allowed to vote in California for President and Vice-President. On August 28, 1968, plaintiff was informed by letter from the Secretary of State of California that he and his wife would not be allowed to vote in California because they were no longer residents. Plaintiff then wrote to the Secretary of State of Colorado requesting that he and his wife be allowed to vote for President and Vice-President in Colorado despite the six-month residency requirement. On September 6, 1968, plaintiff was informed by the State Election Office that he and his wife would not be allowed to vote in the State of Colorado because they had not resided in Colorado for the required period of time.

The plaintiffs have exhausted their administrative remedies, and this Court has jurisdiction of the controversy, which arises under the Constitution and laws of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 1343.

Art. II, Sec. 1 of the Constitution of the United States provides that the President and Vice-President of the United States shall be elected by electors chosen from each State, who shall be appointed "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." The various methods which have been used in the past for "appointing" electors are discussed in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 29-32, 13 S.Ct. 3, 36 L.Ed. 869 (1892); for many years all of the States have chosen electors by popular votes.

It has long been settled law that the States have the power to prescribe reasonable and nondiscriminatory qualifications for voting in federal as well as state elections.5 Therefore, Colorado has the unquestioned responsibility and duty to prescribe reasonable and nondiscriminatory qualifications for voting in the election for President and Vice-President of the United States. The plaintiffs attempt to draw an analogy between the issue they present and the issues involved in the congressional redistricting and legislative reapportionment cases, e. g., Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 561-562, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed. 2d 506 (1964), and Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 88 S.Ct. 1114, 20 L. Ed.2d 45 (1968). However, we find, as did the Three-Judge Court in Drueding v. Devlin, 234 F.Supp. 721, 725 (D.Md. 1964), that those cases are not analogous to the issues presented here.6

Since the State of Colorado has the authority and the responsibility to prescribe qualifications for voting in the election for President and Vice-President of the United States, the only real issue in this case is whether the Colorado Statute which requires residence in the State for six months before an otherwise qualified voter may vote is so unreasonable as to amount to a prohibited discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The leading case on the reasonableness of state residency requirements is Drueding v. Devlin, 234 F.Supp. 721 (D.Md. 1964), aff'd per curiam, 380 U.S. 125, 85 S.Ct. 807, 13 L.Ed.2d 792 (1965). In Drueding, a Three-Judge District Court was faced with the same question presented here. The plaintiffs there, as in the present case, were fully qualified except for satisfying the residency requirement. The statute required one year of residence within the state and six months within the county. The plaintiffs had moved to Maryland from Pennsylvania on June 6, 1964 and had sought to vote in the 1964 presidential election. In every sense, the facts in Drueding are parallel to the facts in this case.

The Court in Drueding noted that there are two purposes in such a statutory residency provision:

1. Identifying the voter and protecting against fraud.

2. Insuring that the voter will in fact become a member of the community, and as such have a common interest in all matters pertaining to its government. The fully reasoned opinion by Judge Thomsen expressed the personal opinions of the Judges that the objectives of the statute could probably be attained by a shorter residency requirement, but concluded that the Court was not at liberty to substitute its personal views for those of the legislature in the absence of a showing of unreasonable discrimination. After carefully considering the applicable Supreme Court decisions, the Court concluded that the residency requirements were not so unreasonable as to amount to an irrational discrimination.

The Supreme Court of Colorado has stated that the purposes of residency requirements are:

1. To preserve the purity of elections. Mauff v. People, 52 Colo. 562, 123 P. 101 (1912).

2. To prevent the control of state affairs by persons who have no pecuniary interest in them. Merrill v. Shearston, 73 Colo. 230, 214 P. 540 (1923). While the purpose mentioned in Merrill has no application in this case since the plaintiffs want to vote only in the presidential election, the state's interest in preserving the purity of its elections is very much present. Some time limit must be set for determining who is and who is not a resident of Colorado for the purposes of voting, not only to preserve the purity of the election, but also for administrative reasons. In line with the personal opinions of the Judges in Drueding that the objectives of residency requirements could probably be attained in a period less than a year, Colorado has chosen to amend its Constitution and pursuant to that amendment the Colorado legislature has provided a time limit of six months for presidential elections. We are not at liberty to substitute our personal views of what time limit would accomplish the objectives of a residency requirement for the judgment of the Colorado legislature in the absence of a showing of unreasonable discrimination.

The Court in Drueding held that a one year residency requirement was not so unreasonable as to amount...

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7 cases
  • Shapiro v. Thompson Washington v. Legrant Reynolds v. Smith 34, s. 9
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • 21 April 1969
    ...the District Court had rejected a constitutional challenge to Maryland's one-year residence requirement for presidential elections, 292 F.Supp. 610, the rationale employed by the Court in these appeals would seem to require the opposite conclusion. If a State would violate equal protection ......
  • Affeldt v. Whitcomb
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana
    • 20 October 1970
    ...right to vote in elections for the approval of issuance of revenue bonds by municipal utilities. 6 The district court in Hall v. Beals, 292 F.Supp. 610 (D.Colo.1968) dismissed an action seeking to enjoin the enforcement of a state statute which prohibited a resident from voting in elections......
  • Ely v. Klahr
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • 7 June 1971
    ...Colorado's durational residency requirement prior to the 1968 election did not fare as well. The District Court upheld the requirement 292 F.Supp. 610, and we heard oral argument after the election was over. The case was dismissed as moot. Hall v. Beals, 396 U.S. 45, 90 S.Ct. 200, 24 L.Ed.2......
  • Keppel v. Donovan
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota
    • 4 December 1970
    ...the District Court had rejected a constitutional challenge to Maryland's one-year residence requirement for presidential elections, 292 F. Supp. 610, the rationale employed by the Court in these appeals (Shapiro v. Thompson and companion cases) would seem to require the opposite conclusion.......
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