598 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 8,

fulfill the purpose of his presence, he may not be
"'absent, " yet he does not attend. This will more
fully appear upon a close reading of said section and
the discovery that the word "attend" is used all
through it as applying to the Judges, while the word
"present" is invariably used in speaking of all others.
What must he attend He must attend "at any elec-
tion, Federal, State or County, " and then it prescribes
that he shall attend such election at the time and
place designated. For what must he be present, to

stand passive, to keep quiet, to do nothing, to refuse
to hold an election? No. He must be present and
perform his duty or be willing so to do, and then he

attends within the meaning of the statute. Moreover
such a construction as is contended for by the com-
mittee would not only enable the Judges to defeat the
law entirely, and render it ineffective, but would be
ridiculous in its results. The Judges might be pres-
ent in body, and without rhyme or reason or arbi-
trarily refuse to hold an election. Official ballots
might be furnished, the machinery of election com
plete in every detail and yet two ignorant, unqualified,
or prejudiced Judges could defeat the right of suf-
frage by their construction of the law, and as in this
case rely upon the Legislature, upon a quibble, to
throw out the vote of a precinct, a district or a county
by a narrow construction of the law based upon a con-
tracted definition of a word. It is a well established
canon of construction that all laws should be so con-
strued. as by every reasonable intendment, to make
them effective, and to accomplish their patent pur-
posess to this end the spirit and not the letter
of the law is followed, and to ascertain its pur-
pose is the best guide. The plain purpose of
this section is to provide officers for holding elections,
whenever, for any reason, those regularly appointed
neglect or refuse to do so. The Legislature never in-
tended to leave the sacred right of suffrage to the ten-
der mercies of the legal opinion or the narrow par-
tisanship of an Election Judge, based upon an atten-
uated technicality. The first duty of an Election
Judge is to hold an election at the time and place pre-
scribed to secure a free expression of the will of the
people, by a literal compliance with the terms of the