THE FOLLOWING ACTS WERE PASSED AT JANUARY SESSION, A. D. 1844.

An Act to regulate the Election of Civil Officers.

SECTION

17. Penalty for fraudulently admitting or rejecting name.

18. Same subject.

19. Paupers, who considered.

15. Town council to be in session to cor-
rect the list-notice of how given.
16. Corrected list to be posted up, and 40. Penalties how recovered.
council to be in session-proceedings 41. Secretary to furnish returns.
preparatory to election for members 42. Acts repealed.

of Congress, &c.-corrected list to be 43. When this act takes effect.
delivered to town clerk and by him to

It is enacted by the General Assembly, as follows:

SECTION 1. The town councils of the several towns shall be boards of canvassers of voters in their respective towns,

as herein after provided; and the town clerks of the several towns shall act as clerks of said boards in their respective towns, and shall produce to their respective councils such returns, documents and records as the councils may require for the performance of their duties herein after set forth.

SEC. 2. If any person claims a right to vote on account of having done military duty in the militia, or in any chartered or legally authorized volunteer company not attached to a regimental company or regiment under the militia law of the state, the proof thereof shall be a certificate from the colonel or commanding officer of the regimental company or regiment to which such person belongs or is attached, or from the captain or commanding officer of the chartered or legally authorized volunteer company not attached as aforesaid, that he has within the year next preceding his claim, and on or before the thirty-first day of December of said year, been enrolled, and in what company, and that he has done duty therein for at least one day, and been equipped according to law; and every commanding officer of a regimental company or regiment, or captain or commanding officer of a chartered or legally authorized volunteer company not attached as aforesaid, who shall wilfully refuse to grant such certificate to any person properly demanding and entitled to the same, or shall knowingly grant any such certificate to one not entitled thereto, shall for each and every such offence forfeit the sum of one hundred dollars.

SEC. 3. Every colonel or commanding officer of a regimental company or regiment, and every captain or commanding officer of a chartered or legally authorized volunteer company not attached as aforesaid, shall on or before the last Second Monday of February in every year, make return, by him certified and sworn to before some judge, justice of the peace, or public notary, of all persons, arranging their names alphabetically, belonging or attached to his regimental company or regiment, or belonging to his chartered legally authorized volunteer company not attached as aforesaid, as the case may be, qualified to vote by military service as aforesaid, to the clerk's office of the several towns in which such persons reside; and every colonel or commandant of a regimental company or regiment, captain or commanding officer of a chartered or legally authorized volunteer company, who shall wilfully neglect or refuse to make such returns, or shall knowingly make a false or imperfect return, shall forfeit not less than twenty-five, nor more than five hundred dollars.

SEC. 4. The colonels or commanding officers of the sev

eral regimental companies and regiments, shall have full power, and it shall be their duty, to require from the captains and other officers and privates under their command, all such returns and evidences under oath as may be necessary to enable them to comply with the provisions of the constitution and of this act; and every captain or other officer or private refusing to make such returns, or to give such evidence when thereunto duly required, or wilfully making false returns, or giving false evidence, shall forfeit not less than twenty-five dollars, nor more than three hundred dollars.

SEC. 5. All registry and other taxes shall be paid to the collector of taxes only: provided, however, that in case of a highway tax where by law the same may be paid in labor or money to a surveyor of highways, the receipt of such surveyor of such payment shall be sufficient evidence thereof, on settlement with the collector. No person who claims a right to vote upon the payment of a tax or taxes assessed, for any other officer than mayor, aldermen, or common councilmen of the city of Providence, or upon any other proposition than one to impose a tax, or for the expenditure of money in any town or city, shall by the boards of canvassers be admitted to vote, unless upon the production of a certificate from the collector of taxes of some town in this state, that on or before the last day of December, in the year next preceding, he has paid such tax assessed for, and within such year, at least to the amount of one dollar. If he claims a right to vote upon the payment of a registry tax, such payment shall be certified as aforesaid by the officer of the town in which he resided at the time such tax was assessed, authorized to receive the same; and if his name has been registered for more than one year, two registry taxes for the two years next preceding the canvass having been assessed against him, and he claims a right to vote upon the payment of his registry tax, the certificate of the officer of the town in which he resided at the time such tax was assessed, authorized to receive the same, shall be produced before the canvassers, that on or before the last day of December next preceding the canvass, he has paid such registry tax for each of the two years next preceding the time of voting; or that one of the same, if the other has been paid, has been remitted by the town council of the town in which he resided at the time of the assessment of said tax, in conformity with article two, section three, of the constitution.

SEC. 6. No person claiming a right to vote upon the payment of a property tax, in the election of the city council

of the city of Providence, or of any member of the same, or upon any proposition to impose a tax, or for the expenditure of money in any town, shall in such case be admitted by the canvassers to vote, unless upon a certificate from the collector of taxes of such town that he has on or before the last day of December, in the year next preceding, paid a tax assessed for and within such year, upon his property therein, valued at least at one hundred and thirty-four dollars.

SEC. 7. Any collector of taxes or other officer authorized to receive the taxes in either of the two preceding sections mentioned, who shall wilfully refuse to grant the certificate therein prescribed, to any person demanding the same, and legally entitled thereto, or shall grant such certificate to one not entitled thereto, shall forfeit the sum of one hundred dollars for each and every offence.

SEC. 8. Every town clerk shall provide a suitable book for the registry of the names of all persons who, in order to vote, are required by the constitution to be registered; which book shall be kept in the office of the town clerk, for the purpose of such registry only, and shall always be open to the inspection of any elector of such town; and every town clerk in this state is hereby required to register in said book the name of every male inhabitant of the town, who shall demand such registry, and who shall declare that he is qualified by birth, and is or will be within a year qualified by age and residence, to vote in such town, together with the date of the registry; and shall also register therein the name of every such inhabitant demanded to be registered by any elector of such town, who shall declare that such inhabitant is qualified by birth, and is or will be within a year qualified by age and residence to vote therein; in which case, besides the date of the registry, he shall also register opposite the name of such inhabitant the name of the elector demanding the same. Every town clerk who shall neglect to provide and keep such book, or who shall refuse at all suitable times to permit such inspection of the same, or who shall refuse or neglect to register the name of any person, upon demand and declaration as aforesaid, or shall register a name without a date, or with a false date, or shall fraudulently erase from the registry the name of any person duly registered thereon, shall forfeit the sum of one hundred dollars for each and every such offence.

SEC. 9. No person whose name is upon the registry of any town shall be deemed to be registered therein who shall have died, or who for the space of one year shall have ceased to reside in such town; and it shall be the duty of the town

council of each town, on the second Monday of June in each year, carefully to examine the registry of such town, in open meeting, and to purge the same, by placing against the names of all persons thereon who are dead, or who for the space of one year shall have ceased to reside in such town, the word "dead," or "non-resident," as the case may be, and to correct the registry where the same person is registered more than once thereon; and if the name of any person shall be wilfully or fraudulently stricken from the registry as aforesaid, whose name should be retained thereon, every member of the town council wilfully and fraudulently concurring in the same, shall forfeit the sum of one hundred dollars for every name so stricken off as aforesaid.

SEC. 10. On or before the first Monday of December and in the month of December in each year, the town clerk of every town shall deliver to the assessors of taxes for their respective towns a certified copy from their registry of the names of all persons then registered in the town, alphabetically arranged, placing opposite the name of every person thereon the amount of his assessed property tax for and within said year; and such assessors of taxes shall within five days thereafter, in every year, assess upon every person whose name shall have been registered as aforesaid, as his registry tax, a tax of one dollar, or such sum as with his other taxes shall amount to one dollar, and return to the clerk's office of the town said copy of the registry by them duly certified, with the registry tax assessed against each person placed against his name thereon, which copy so returned it shall be the duty of the town clerk to put on file in his office. The town clerk shall, within ten days after the first Monday of December in each year, deliver a duly certified copy of the registry, with the assessments aforesaid, to the collector of taxes for such town. Every town clerk neglecting or refusing to deliver such certified copy to the assessors as aforesaid, or wilfully delivering a false or imperfect copy, shall forfeit the sum of three hundred dollars; and if any assessors of taxes shall wholly neglect or refuse to make such assessments, each and every such assessor so neglecting or refusing, shall forfeit the sum of one thousand dollars, and be liable to imprisonment for one year; and if any assessors shall wilfully neglect or refuse to assess as aforesaid any person registered as aforesaid, each and every assessor so neglecting or refusing, shall forfeit the sum of one hundred dollars for each and every person whom he shall so neglect or refuse to assess as aforesaid.