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lei of the absentee ballot to the men to
whom we want to give the prerogative to
vote.
Who is better qualified to cast a vote? A
man who spends his waking hours at his
business or a fellow who lives out of the
county in the next state, and we extend
the franchise to him on an absentee ballot.
I suggest the more qualified man is the
gentleman who works and earns his living in the municipality and pays the taxes.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate White.
DELEGATE WHITE: Mr. Chairman, I
yield two minutes to Delegate Borom.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Borom.
DELEGATE BOROM: Mr. Chairman,
and fellow delegates, I rise to support the
amendment presented by the minority and
I would remind you we are talking about
the issue of non-resident voters. We are
talking about people who are engaged in
profit-making ventures, people who appar-
ently already have some faith in the gov-
ernment of the community. They have some
faith in the voters and in the community.
We are talking about people who have
made choices. I would be willing to say
that any businessman who wants to invest
in a community must have some faith. He
gets his rewards not primarily by having
the right to vote as a non-resident, but he
gets his reward primarily from the profits
that he can pull from that community.
And I will remind many of you who are
familiar with the company town branch
office, that one of the worst evils in many
municipalities is the branch office where
you have an interest in profit-making
rather than an interest in the health and
welfare of the community.
I would urge you against including a
constitutional provision for non-resident
voters.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: I call on
Delegate Fox and yield up to five minutes
to him.
(President H. Vernon Ency resumed the
Chair.)
THE CHAIRMAN: I understand the
maximum is four and a half minutes.
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DELEGATE FOX: Mr. Chairman, I will
try to stay well within the time. I am re-
minded of the words of the Rubaiyat, "My-
self when young did eagerly frequent /
Doctor and saint, and heard great argu-
ment / about it and evermore came out
by the same door as in I went."
This is not any matter of one man, one
vote. Let us destroy that right at the mo-
ment and let me answer Delegate Smith's
argument about the man who voted in a
municipality even though he did not live
there, and he could vote in two counties.
If you can vote in two counties, you
can vote twice for a delegate to the legis-
lature or twice for a senator. If you live in
Baltimore City, you can vote for the mayor
and council on the day that they have the
municipal election, and then on the day
that they have the state election, if it
should be a different day, you simply then
vote for your representatives to the General
Assembly. This is all you are saying to
people who live outside of the municipality
as I do, in the county where I vote in the
county election. And I own property in the
City of Salisbury and so on the election
day I can go to Salisbury and vote there.
There is absolutely no problem about
policing this. It is very easy to tell whether
a person has a right to vote by virtue of
owning property in a municipality. You
have to take a certificate from the tax as-
sessor with you when you register to show
that you are a property owner. There is no
difficulty about policing the thing at all.
Now, I must seriously question this
statement that was made here that in mu-
nicipal elections in Ocean City only 50
residents voted.
They were going to produce the figures
and maybe they have them and maybe they
do not. So far as I know I voted in the
last election in Ocean City because I have
a cottage on the beach over there. There
was an election over there with regard to
annexation that they may possibly be re-
ferring to, but as I recall, being on the
streets of Ocean City on election day, there
were certainly a lot more than 50 residents
that were in the line to exercise their
franchise.
This would really be drastic as far as
Ocean City is concerned. A majority or a
large number of people who live in Ocean
City and own property and are on the city
council there live across the bay in a sec-
tion they call Captain's Hill.
Their land and interests are in the town
of Ocean City, but they live on the other
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