State ex rel. Garesche v. Bond

• Decision Date: 31 October 1866
• Citation: 38 Mo. 425
• Parties: STATE OF MISSOURI ex rel. ALEXANDER J. P. GARESCHE, Plaintiff, v. IRA M. BOND, Defendant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

38 Mo. 425

STATE OF MISSOURI ex rel. ALEXANDER J. P. GARESCHE, Plaintiff,

v.IRA M. BOND, Defendant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1866.

Garesche, p. s.

I. Mandamus will lie where there is no appeal. The voter must be registered as an accepted or a rejected voter, or he is not of the three classes included in the eleventh section of the registration law, for which an appeal is granted, and this section is to be strictly construed.

II. The voter may register in any precinct, but must vote in that in which he is registered--Const. Art. II., § 18.

Knox, for respondent.

I. The writ will not lie, because the relator has a full and adequate remedy either by going to the registering officer of his own district, or by presenting his claim to the court of appeals--Com. Dig. “Mandamus.”

II. The law clearly implies that each voter must be registered in the district of his residence--Act of registration, R. C. 1865, p. 904, §§ 2, 11, 19.

HOLMES, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The relator states that he has for the last six years been a resident of the fifth ward of the city of St. Louis; that during all that period he has been and now is a duly qualified voter under and in pursuance of the laws of the State of Missouri, duly authorized and qualified to vote at all elections for State, county and township officers, and for county officers for the wards of the city of St. Louis, namely, justice of the peace and constable for the fifth ward; and that pursuant to the act of the last Legislature of Missouri, entitled “An act to provide for the registration of voters,” approved Dec. 16th, 1865, it is necessary that the relator, though a legal and qualified voter, should present himself before a registrar to be registered as a legal voter; and without which the relator could not be registered, and therefore would lose his right to vote at said election. And, further, that he presented himself on the day named before Ira M. Bond, the registering officer, at the eastern precinct of the fifth ward aforesaid, the precinct where he always had voted since his residence in said fifth ward, and asked the said registrar to register him, and that the registrar refused to register him, or even to enter his name as a “rejected voter,” in which latter case he could have appealed to the Board of Supervisors of registration, according to the statute in such cases made and provided; and that the registrar refused to entertain any motion whatever for his application, assigning as a reason for his refusal that the relator resided in another precinct, and, further, that by law he must vote in the precinct where he is registered; that it was inconvenient and unpleasant for him to register in the precinct of his domicil, and that he always voted in the precinct where he proposed himself for registration; and he therefore prayed for a mandamus.

The defendant makes return to the alternative writ, and shows for cause why he refused to register the relator as a legal voter, that the said Garesche does not reside within the election district in which the defendant is registrar, and that by reason thereof he had no authority to inquire and ascertain as to his qualifications as a voter, nor to register him in said election district.

The case will be considered upon the facts thus disclosed in the petition and return.

The petition does not speak in terms of election districts, but only of wards and precincts. The uncertainty of the petition...