is true it contains no express words of an exclusion, from the standard which it established, of any persons on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude prohibited by the Fifteenth Amendment, but the standard itself inher ently brings that result to existence, since it is based purely on a period of time before the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment and makes that period the controlling and domi nant test of the right of suffrage.
'We are unable to discover how, unless the prohibitions of the Fifteenth Amendment were considered, the slightest reason was afforded for basing the classification upon a period of time prior to the Fifteenth Amendment. Cer tainly it cannot be said that there was any peculiar necromancy in the time named which engendered attributes affecting the qualification to vote which would not exist at another and different period unless the Fifteenth Amendment was in The Court took the view that under ordi nary circumstances the State should decide the question whether the nullification of the excep tions of the grandfather clause would at the same time make void the general literacy test to which it appended. In the absence of a decision by a State court the Chief Justice, however, said that the Federal tribunal would pass upon the question. Ordinarily a provision like the literary' test, which is legal in itself, would not be destroyed by the wiping out of an illegal accompanying provision. But the plain meaning of the Oklahoma constitution was that the reading test should not be used to disqual ify lineal descendants of voters prior to 1866. As this would be accomplished in many cases by continuing the reading test without the of fensive exemptions, the whole provision was stricken out. Accordingly in 1916 the Oklahoma legislature passed a proposed constitutional amendment (approved by the governor 21 Feb. 1916), which prohibited any property qualifi cation; it contained the reading and writing clause but this clause was inoperative if, prior to the adoption of the amendment, a prospec tive elector had served in the land or naval forces of the United States or of any State or foreign nation, or in the Revolution, War of 1812, Mexican War, or on either side in the Indian wars or the Civil War; and all lawful descendants of such persons were included. But this amendment was rejected at the election of August 1916 and now the only restriction on suffrage in Oklahoma is a universal registration act passed by a special sessidn of the legisla ture in 1916.
Residence and Absentee Gener ally speaking, an elector must vote in the pre cinct wherein he resides, if he have a fixed place of abode. As employed in the statutes and constitutions in defining political rights, a residence is synonymous with home or domicile, denoting a permanent dwelling place to which the party when absent intends to return. An absence for 'months or even years, provided the party intended it merely as a temporary ar rangement, after which he would occupy his former home, would not constitute an abandon ment of such residence or home or deprive the party of his right to vote thereat. But the mere act of abiding in a place for a definite time and for a specific purpose, with no present intention of remaining and making it a per manent home, would not constitute a residence entitling the party to vote. A person who re moves from the jurisdiction, intending to re main, thereby loses his residence, even though he may afterward change his intention and return; nor can he vote until he has re-estab lished his residence by remaining in the juris diction the statutory period. Courts have held,
iowever, that where a person is a bona-fide resident of a county but has no fixed residence or domicile in any particular precinct therein, he may vote in any precinct wherein he may happen to be on election day. In 1915 Vermont enacted a law permitting a voter who changed his residence within 15 days prior to election to vote in the town to which he moved; conversely Connecticut and California allowed the voter to retain a voting residence in the town from which he moved. Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Washington and Wisconsin passed permitting voters absent from their home precincts to vote elsewhere in the State. In 1916, Virginia and Oklahoma provided for ab sentee voting, the former allowing absent elec tors to vote by registered mail and the latter permitting an elector absent from his county to vote in another precinct. Absentee voting occurs sometimes when large bodies of citizens are called into some branch of governmental service, such as the army; this happened in the elections of 1916 and 1917 when the National Guard troops were on the Mexican border, or in France or in cantonments preparing for serv ice abroad, special provisions being made for the balloting at the camps. In the election of November 1917 Massachusetts adopted an amendment enabling the legislature to establish arrangements for absentee voting.
Voting in Territories and Dependencies. —As previously stated, residents of the Dis trict of Columbia do not vote, the government being in the hands of a board of commission ers appointed by the President. From 1802 to 1855 white taxpayers were permitted to vote for local officers; subsequently the taxpaying qualification was eliminated; in 1867 all adult male citizens white or black were granted the franchise if not disqualified by the Fourteenth Amendment; but in 1874 all suffrage rights were abrogated. Prior to becoming a territory of the United States, Hawaii required that electors of members of the senate be possessed of a substantial amount of property, but under the organic act of 1900 all persons may vote who are duly registered citizens of the United States, 21 years of age, resident in the islands one year or more, and who can speak, read and write either the English or Hawaiian language; hence Chinese and Japanese are excluded. In Porto Rico all male citizens, 21 years of age or over, who had resided in the island one year might vote if they passed a property or an edu cational test similar to that of South Carolina, but in 1904 a law was passed renewing the property qualification and requiring that after 1906 all registrants should be able to read and write; but permitting those who already were voters to continue their exercise of the voting privilege. In 1907, in his proclamation for an election of delegates to the Philippine assem bly, President Roosevelt denied the right of representation to the Moros and other non Christian tribes, and required that each voter be capable of reading, writing or speaking Eng lish or Spanish, that he be an owner of prop erty or a taxpayer, and that he take an oath of allegiance. In Alaska both men and women enjoy full suffrage rights.