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Extract from a Law respecting Elections.

Passed April 5, 1842.

TITLE I.-Of the qualifications, disabilities and priviliges of Electors.

§ 1. Every male citizen of the age of twenty-one years,, who shall have been an inhabitant of this state one year next preceding any election, and for the last six months a resident of the county where he may offer his vote, is entitled to vote in the town or ward where he actually resides, and not elsewhere, for all officers that now are, or hereafter may be, elective by the people.

§ 2. No man of color shall vote at any such election, unless he shall have been for three years a citizen of this state; and for one year next preeeding the election at which he shall offer his vote, shall have been seized and been possessed of a freehold estate of the value of two hundred and fifty dollars, over all debts and encumbrances charged thereon; and shall have been actually rated and paid a tax thereon.

§ 3. No person who shall have been convicted of an infamous crime, deemed by the laws of this state a felony, at any time previous to an election, shall be permitted to vote thereat; unless he shall have been pardoned before or after his term of imprisonment has expired, and restored by pardon to all the rights of a citizen.

§ 4. Whenever an election shall be held in any city or town, pursuant to this chapter, no declaration by which a suit shall be commenced, or any civil process, or proceeding in the nature of civil process, shall be served on any elector entitled to vote in such city or town, on the day on which such election shall be held.

§ 5. No court shall be opened, or transact any business, in any city or town on the day such election shall be held therein, unless it be for the purpose of receiving a verdict or discharging a jury, or the naturalization of foreigners.

TITLE II.—of general and special elections; the time and purpose of holding them; and the persons by whom held.

§ 1. General elections are such as are held at the same time in every county, for the election of all, or some of the following officers, namely, Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, senators, members of assembly, sheriffs, clerks of counties, coronors, representatives in congress, and electors of president and vice-president.

§ 2. The register and clerk of the city and county of New-York, shall also be chosen at a general election.

§ 3. Special elections are such as are held only in a particular district or county, at a time when no general election is held, for the choice of one or more of the officers proper to be chosen at a general election.

§ 4. General elections shall be held on the Tuesday succeeding the first Monday of November in every year; special elections at the times and places of which legal notice shall have been given; but no special election shall be held within forty days previously to a general election.

§ 5. General and special elections shall be held for one day only. § 6. Special elections shall be held in the following cases:

1. When an officer other than a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and elector of president and vice-president, proper to be chosen at a general election, shall not have been chosen by reason of two or more candidates having received an equal number of votes for the same office.

2. When the right of office of a person elected to the office of a representative in congress, senator, member of the assembly, sheriff, or clerk of any county, or sheriff, clerk, or register of the city and county of New-York, shall cease before commencement of the term of service for which such officer shall have been elected.

3. When a vacancy occurs in the office of any member of assembly after

the last day of December in any year, and before the first day of April following, if such vacancy shall deprive a county of its entire representation.

4. When in case of an extra session of the legislature, any county shall by a vacancy in the office of member of assembly, occurring between the first day of April, and ten days before the time appointed for such extra session, be deprived of its entire representation.

§ 7. When a special election shall not have taken place as required by law, the vacancy which ought to have been supplied by such election shall be supplied at the next general election.

§8. All vacancies in the office of representative in congress, senator, sheriff and clerk of any county, or sheriff, clerk or register of the city and county of New-York, shall be supplied at the general election next succeeding the happening thereof; but when the term of service of any such officer will expire at the end of the year during which the vacancy in his office shall occur, no person shall be chosen to supply such vacancy; but the usual election shall be held for a new officer to hold during the constitutional term. § 9. If a vacancy proper to be supplied at a general election, shall not have been supplied at the general election next succeeding the happening thereof, a special electíon to supply such vacancy shall then be held.

§ 10. Special elections in the first case provided for in the sixth section of this Title, shall be ordered by the board of canvassers having the power to determine on the election of the officer omitted to be chosen; and in all other cases, such elections shall be ordered by the Governor, who shall issue his proclamation therefor.

§ 11. Such proclamation shall specify the county or district in which such special election is to be held; the cause of such election; the name of the officer in whose office the vacancy has occurred; the time when his term of office will expire; and the day on which such election is to be held, which shall not be less than twenty nor more than forty days from the date of the proclamation.

§ 12. The elections in the several cities and towns shall be by election districts.

TITLE III.-ARTICLE THIRD.-Of elections in cities and towns.

§ 8. The several cities of this state shall be divided by the common council of the said citics respectively, into convenient election districts for the holding of all general and special elections, and all elections of the officers of such cities who are elective by the people.

§ 9. Every ward in the city containing not more than five hundred voters, shall be an election district; every ward in the city containing more than five hundred voters and not more than eight hundred voters, may, on or before the first Monday of October next, or in any year thereafter, be divided by the common council of such city, if they shall deem expedient, into two districts, to contain, as near as may be, an equal number of voters; and every ward of a city containing more than eight hundred voters, shall, on or before the first Monday of October next, and as often annually thereafter as may be necessary or expedient, be divided by the common council of such city into two or more districts, in such manner as shall be entire within one ward, and shall contain, as near as may be, an equal number of voters; and no district shall contain more than eight hundred voters.

§ 15. The supervisor, assessors, and town clerk of each town, shall meet at the town clerk's office in such town on the first Tuesday in September next, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, and form themselves into a board. And they shall, in all cases where any town shall contain more than five hundred electors, divide the same into a convenient number of election districts, so that each district shall be in a compact form within their town, and shall contain not more than five hundred electors, as far as the number can be ascertained. But where any town shall contain less than five hundred electors, the board may, in their discretion, divide the same into districts.

TITLE IV.-ARTICLE SECOND.-Manner of Voting, and Residence.

§ 7. The electors shall vote by ballot; and each person offering to vote, shall deliver his ballot, so folded as to conceal the contents, to one of the in. spectors, in the presence of the board.

§ 8. The ballot shall be a paper ticket, which shall contain, written or printed, or partly written, and partly printed, the names of the persons for whom the elector intends to vote, and shall designate the office to which each person, so named is intended by him to be chosen; but no ballot shall contain a greater number of names of persons as designated to any office, than there are persons to be chosen at the election to fill such office.

§ 9. The names of all the persons voted for by any elector, at any election, excepting of electors of president and vice-president, shall be upon one ballot, which ballot shall be endorsed "State."

§ 10. When electors of president and vice-president are to be chosen, a separate ballot shall be given for them, which shall be endorsed "Electors," and shall contain the names of the persons designated by the voter giving the same, to be electors of president and vice-president, or any of them.

§ 11. If at a general election, there be one or more vacancies to be supplied in the office of senator, and at the same election a senator is to be elected for four years, the term for which the person voted for is intended, shall be designated on the ballot.

§ 12. If at a general election for representatives in congress, any person named in a congress ballot, shall be intended to supply a vacancy in the office of such representative, the ballots shall designate the congress for which each person is intended to be chosen.

§ 21. No person shall be deemed to have lost or acquired a residence by being a student in a college, academy, or any seminary of learning; nor by living in any poor house, alms house, hospital or asylum in which he shall be maintained at public expense; nor by being under punishment in any prison, bridewell or penitentiary; nor by being absent from his town or place engaged in the army or navy of the United States, or in navigating any of the waters of this state, the United States, or on the high seas; nor by being a soldier of the United States stationed at any place within this state, and without having acquired any other lawful residence.

ART. FOURTH.-Canvass and Estimate of the Votes by the Board of Inspectors. § 35. As soon as the poll of an election shall have been finally closed, the inspectors of the said election in their several districts, shall proceed to canvass the votes. Such canvass shall be public, and shall not be adjourned or postponed until it shall have been fully completed.

§ 36. The canvass shall commence by a comparison of the poll lists, from the commencement, and a correction of any mistakes that may be found therein.

§ 37. Each box being opened, the ballots contained therein shall be taken out and counted unopened, except so far as to ascertain that each ballot is single. And if two or more ballots shall be found so folded together as to present the appearance of a single ballot, they shall be destroyed, if the whole number of ballots exceed the whole number of votes, and not otherwise.

§ 38. No ballot properly endorsed, found in a box different from that desig. nated by its endorsement, shall be rejected, but shall be counted in the same manner as if found in the box designated by such endorsement, provided that by the counting of such ballot or ballots, it shall not produce an excess of votes over the number of voters as designated on the poll list.

§ 39. If the ballots shall be found to exceed in number the whole number of votes on the coresponding columns of the poll lists, they shall be replaced in the box, and one of the inspectors shall, without seeing the same, publicly draw out and destroy so many ballots unopened, as shall be equal to such

excess.

POST-OFFICES AND POST-MASTERS

IN THE STATE OF NEW-YORK.

The POST-OFFICES in county towns are in SMALL CAPITALS; and the distances given from Albany and Washington are from the corrected list by the Post-Master General. The new Post-Offices and changes of Post-Masters are included in this table, and the whole corrected by returns from the General Post-Office to the 15th of December, 1842.

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Allegany

A. C. Hull

262

335

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