Registration

The word “registration,” used in the U. S. R. S. § 2011, has a general, not a technical, meaning, and indicates any list or schedule containing a list of voters, the being upon which constitutes a prerequisite to vote, unless there is a system of registration described by act of congress, and applied by the act as the only registration of voters under the law. The Delaware assessment lists, made primarily by the assessors of the different hundreds, and completed by the levy courts of the different counties, are such lists, though they contain not only a list of voters, but of other persons besides. The registration of voters intended by the act of congress need not be conclusive evidence that the person registered is qualified to vote; In re Appointment of Supervisors of Election, 1 Fed. 1. This decision was prior to the existence in Delaware of a registration act eo nomine. The registration of voters under the Delaware act was held to be so far judicial and not ministerial that a mandamus was refused to restore to the voting list the name of a person stricken off by the board of registration; Lurtz v. Hardcastle, 1 Marvel (Del.) 450, 41 Atl. 194. laws of that state were null and void as being an unreasonable restriction of the right of suffrage, evidently intended to exclude ignorant persons, especially of the African race, and a violation both of the constitution of the state and of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution of the United States; Mills v. Green, 67 Fed. 818. See Land Transfer; Torrens System; Record; Registration.