88 Ga. 699
Supreme Court of Georgia.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. While the act of 1877 confers authority on the city council of Madison to require registration of persons qualified to vote at any corporate election, and therefore at an election to approve the local school act of 1889, no ordinance comprehensive enough to include this latter election having been passed when the election was held, the only elective body to which the school act could then be submitted was the legally qualified voters of the city, irrespective of registration. The managers of the election having rejected the votes of nonregistered electors, and confined the vote to the persons whose names appeared on a registration list made under the existing ordinance, and with reference to a previous election of a different kind, the submission was not to the whole body of legal electors. The existing registration ordinance applies only to elections for municipal officers.
2. Under the language of the constitution, the school act of 1889 would have to be submitted to all the qualified voters mentioned in the act itself, and two thirds voting at the election would not be sufficient to approve the act, unless they were two thirds of the whole number qualified to vote. It would be competent for the city, by passing a proper registration ordinance, to provide for ascertaining the whole number, but, until this is done, the act of 1889 cannot be worked in harmony with the provisions of the constitution. For the two local acts referred to, see Acts 1877, p. 174; Acts 1889, p. 1311.
3. Registration adds no qualifications to voters, but only serves to identify them as persons qualified to vote.
H. T. Lewis and Foster & Butler, for plaintiffs in error.
J. A. Billups and Calvin George, for defendants in error.