AbstractsLaw & Legal Studies

On June 18, 1808, the Legislative Council provided for the election of five trustees in incorporated municipalities and a survey of this first election law reveals the general principles which will be found to underlie most of the succeeding laws of the Territorial and early state-hood periods. We shall consider it, first, from the standpoint of the qualifications which it prescribes for the possession of the franchise and, secondly, with reference to the regulations which it lays down governing the exercise of the right to vote, for it is in these two respects that a study of the development of election laws logically divides itself.