Bazemore v. Bertie County Bd. of Elections, 168

• Citation: 254 N.C. 398,119 S.E.2d 637
• Decision Date: 12 April 1961
• Docket Number: No. 168,168
• Parties: Nancy BAZEMORE v. BERTIE COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina

Page 637

119 S.E.2d 637

254 N.C. 398

Nancy BAZEMORE v. BERTIE COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS.

No. 168

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

April 12, 1961

James R. Walker, Jr., Weldon, Samuel S. Mitchell, Raleigh, and Robert L. Harrell, Sr., Ahoskie, for plaintiff.

John R. Jenkins, Jr., Aulander, and Pritchett & Cooke, Windsor, for defendant.

T. W. Bruton, Atty. Gen., and Ralph Moody, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State of North Carolina, amicus curiae.

MOORE, Justice.

It is undisputed that the States have broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised. Pope v. Williams, 1903, 193 U.S. 621, 632, 24 S.Ct. 573, 48 L.Ed. 817; Mason v. State of Missouri, 1900, 179 U.S. 328, 335, 21 S.Ct. 125, 45 L.Ed. 214. The right of suffrage is not a necessary attribute of citizenship. The right to vote in the States comes from the States. United States v. Cruikshank, 1875, 92 U.S. 542, 555-556, 23 L.Ed. 588.

In North Carolina every citizen of the United States who shall have resided in the State for one year and in the precinct, ward, or election district in which he or she offers to vote, thirty days preceding the election shall, unless otherwise disqualified, be entitled to exercise the privilege of suffrage. G.S. § 163-25.

Persons under twenty-one years of age, idiots and lunatics, and persons who have been convicted of a felony and have not had their citizenship restored in the manner prescribed by law, shall not be allowed to register or vote in this State. G.S. § 163-24.

'Only such persons as are registered shall be entitled to vote * * *.' G.S. § 163-27.

'Every person presenting himself (or herself) for registration shall be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of North Carolina in the English language. It shall be the duty of each registrar to administer the provisions of this section.' (Parentheses added). G.S. § 163-28.

The decision in the instant case depends primarily upon the interpretation and construction of G.S. § 163-28. So far as the record discloses plaintiff was not denied the right to register because of any of the provisions of G.S. § 163-24 or G.S. § 163-25. We must determine this question: Is the educational or literacy test, which the registrar required of plaintiff and which the Bertie County Board of Elections attempted to employ, a reasonable application of the purpose, design and meaning of the phrase, 'read and write any section of the Constitution of North Carolina in the English language'?

Parenthetically, it is settled that this particular statute (G.S. § 163-28) is constitutional. Its constitutionality was directly challenged in Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections, 1958, 248 N.C. 102, 102 S.E.2d 853. Winborne, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court and reviewed the constitutional and statutory history of the literacy test as a qualification for voting in this State, beginning with chapter 218, P.L.1899, and the constitutional amendment of 1902, and continuing through the enactment of G.S. § 163-28 in its present form in 1957. The opinion recognizes that the decision in Guinn v. United States, 1915, 238 U.S. 347, 35 S.Ct. 926, 59 L.Ed. 1340, in effect struck down the 'grandfather clause' and, by reason of the indivisibility section, the other provisions of the 1902 amendment. But the Court decided that the 1945 amendment incorporates by reference the literacy test and gives constitutional basis for the 1957 version of G.S. § 163-28. The opinion states: 'In this light, the 1945 amendment so proposed and later adopted had the effect of incorporating and adopting anew the provisions as to the qualifications required of a voter as set out in Article VI, freed of the indivisability clause of the 1902 amendment. And the way was made clear for the General Assembly to act.' The opinion continues: 'In this connection, a doctrine firmly established in the law is that a State Constitution is in no matter a grant of power. All power which is not limited by the Constitution inheres in the people, and an act of a State legislature is legal when the Constitution contains no prohibition against it.' [248 N.C. 102, 102 S.E.2d 861]

The plaintiff in the Lassiter case appealed from this Court to the Supreme Court of the United States. Lassiter v. Northampton County Election Board, 1959, 360 U.S. 45, 79 S.Ct. 985, 990, 3 L.Ed.2d 1072. There the judgment of this Court was affirmed by unanimous decision. Douglas, J., delivered the opinion and made the following pertinent observations:

'* * * (W)hile the right of suffrage is established and guaranteed by the Constitution (Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651, 663-665, 4 S.Ct. 152, 158, 159, 28 L.Ed. 274; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 661-662, 64 S.Ct. 757, 763-764, 88 L.Ed. 987) it is subject to the imposition of state standards which are not discriminatory and which do not contravene any restriction that Congress acting pursuant to its constitutional powers, has imposed. See United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 315, 61 S.Ct. 1031, 1037, 85 L.Ed. 1368. * * *

'We do not suggest that any standards which a State desires to adopt may be required of voters. But there is wide scope for exercise of its jurisdiction. * * * The ability to read and write likewise has some relation to standards designed to promote intelligent use of the ballot. Literacy and illiteracy are neutral on race, creed, color, and sex, as reports around the world show. * * * (I)n our society where newspapers, periodicals, books, and other printed matter canvass and debate campaign issues, a State might conclude that only those who are literate should exercise the franchise. * * *

'The present (North Carolina) requirement, applicable to members of all races, is that the prospective voter 'be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of North Carolina in the English language.' That seems to us to be one fair way of determining whether a person is literate, not a calculated scheme to lay springes for the citizen. Certainly we cannot condemn it on its face as a device unrelated to the desire of North Carolina to raise the standards for people of all races who cast the ballot.' (Parentheses added).

Reasonable literacy tests to determine qualifications for voting have been consistently held constitutional. Williams v. State of Mississippi, 1898, 170 U.S. 213, 225, 18 S.Ct. 583, 42 L.Ed. 1012; Davis v. Schnell, D.C.1949, 81 F.Supp. 872, 876, affirmed 1949, 336 U.S. 933, 69 S.Ct. 749, 93 L.Ed. 1093. See also Allison v. Sharp, 1936, 209 N.C. 477, 478, 184 S.E. 27. In 1955 there were nineteen States with constitutional or statutory requirements of literacy as a qualification for exercise of suffrage: Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, Wyoming and Virginia. 31 Notre Dame Lawyer, 255 et seq.

The North Carolina statute requires ability to read and write any section of the State's Constitution in the English language. It demands more than the mere ability to write one's own name and to recognize and read a few simple words. In the first place, the reading and writing must be in the English language--the common language of the Nation. The standard or level of performance is the North Carolina Constitution. To be entitled to register as an elector one must be able to read and write any section thereof. Admittedly, the standard is relatively high, even after more than a half century of free public schools and universal education. But the Constitution is the fundamental law of the State and defines the form and concept of our government. It is the framework for democracy. It contains the same basic guaranties of individual rights and liberties and the same principles of representative government and division of powers as are embodied in the Constitution of the United States. There is a direct relationship between the standard of literacy thus imposed and citizenship of the type which should entitle one to exercise the ballot. Furthermore, there is little excuse for illiteracy in this State. North Carolina has a constitutional obligation to provide for the education of all its children. Allison v. Sharp, supra. 'The General Assembly * * * shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of public schools, wherein tuition shall be free of charge to all children of the State between the ages of six and twenty-one years.' Constitution of North Carolina, Art. IX, § 2 (1868-1961). This constitutional provision has been well implemented for more than fifty years.

We have consulted five unabridged dictionaries, all in general use. A definition of 'literacy,' common to all these, is: 'Ability to read and write.' In Webster's New International Dictionary, 2d Ed. (1951), the definitions, of widest application, of the words 'read' and 'write' are: 'read--To utter aloud or render something written * * *.'; 'Write--To form, as characters, or to trace the letters or words of, on paper, parchment, etc., with a pen or pencil * * *.' There are many other definitions, but they are more limited in application. For instance, in oratory, declamation, drama or music the word 'read' has a more specialized meaning. Likewise, to an author or composer 'write' means something more than the tracing of words.

Educators have an expression 'functional literacy.' '* * * (A) person is functionally literate when he has acquired the knowledge and skills in reading and writing which enable him to engage effectively in all those activities in which literacy is normally assumed in his culture or group.' William S. Gray--The Teaching of Reading and Writing: An International Survey (1956). Functional literacy is a praiseworthy goal in education, and a high standard of literacy among all citizens is extremely desirable. But it is our opinion that the General Assembly...