Welch v. Williams

Beatty, C. J. — The petitioner possesses all the qualifications of a voter of Fresno County, and prior to the sixteenth day of January, 1892, his name was enrolled upon the great register. At said date the board of supervisors made an order canceling the great register, and providing for a new and complete registration of the voters of said county, and the respondent immediately thereafter commenced making a new register. On the 17th of March following, the petitioner, upon his own application and upon proper affidavit, had his name entered thereon. His attention having been subsequently called to the language of section 1094 of the Political Code as amended in 1889, he concluded that such registration of his name — made, as it was, more than one hundred days prior to the ensuing general election — was invalid, and therefore within such hundred days he applied to the respondent to register his name anew. This demand having been refused, he asks a peremptory mandate to enforce compliance.

The amended section 1094 reads as follows: “ A register, in which shall be entered the names of the qualified electors of each of the counties in the state, shall be kept [367]at the office of the county clerk of such county, and in each of the cities and counties of the state such a register shall be kept in the office of the person charged with the registration of voters in such city or county. There shall be in each of the counties, and cities and counties, in the state (when required by the board of supervisors), a new and complete registration of the voters of such counties, and cities and counties, who are entitled thereto, and who apply with the proper proof. Such registration shall commence one hundred days before a general election, and shall continue for eighty-five days thence next ensuing, when such registration shall cease; provided, that nothing in this section shall be held to repeal any election or registration law applicable to or in force in the city and county of San Francisco.”

If our attention were confined exclusively to the language of this section, it might seem to require the construction for which the petitioner contends, viz., that when a new registry is ordered, the work cannot lawfully be commenced more than one hundred days prior to the ensuing general election. But for the purpose of construing a statute, all its provisions must be considered together; they must be reconciled as far as possible, and particular provisions must be so construed as to promote and not to defeat the general purposes and policy of the law.