Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/298

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272
NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

county to secure an injunction perpetually restraining them, their successors in office, clerks, deputies, agents, and servants, from removing, or attempting to remove, the books, papers, records, etc., belonging at the county seat of such county from such county seat at Caledonia to the city of Hillsboro, in said county, and from locating or establishing, or attempting to locate or establish, the repective offices of such county or any of the same, at such city of Hillsboro, under and in pursuance of the votes-cast at a certain election held for that purpose under the provisions of chapter 56 of the Lawsof 1890. It is undisputed that at this election all the requirements of this statute were fully complied with. In fact no question upon this appeal is presented, except the single one of the constitutionality of this act. By it a radical change in the manner of relocating county seats was made. Before its enactment, § 565, Comp. Laws, gave the rule. It required a petition of two-thirds of the qualified voters of the county as a condition precedent to the ordering and holding of an election, and two-thirds of the votes actually cast at such election were essential to choice. The act of 1890 requires a petition signed by only one-third of the qualified voters of such county, as shown by the vote cast at the last preceding election for state officers holden in such county, to compel the ordering of an election to relocate the county seat, and three-fifths of the votes actually cast will transfer the county seat to the place having such three-fifths vote. The county seat in Traill county before the election under this statute was located at Caledonia. The proceedings taken under the act were regular and the vote in favor of a relocation at Hillsboro was sufficient to work a relocation of the county seat at that place, if the law in question is valid.

It is undisputed that the proceedings were not efficacious to transfer the county seat, under § 565, Comp. Laws; the petition not being signed by two-thirds of the qualified voters, and the vote in favor of Hillsboro not being equal to two-thirds of the votes cast. The sole inquiry in this appeal, therefore, is respecting the constitutionality of chapter 56 of the Laws of 1890. It is challenged as unconstitutional because of its alleged conflict with § 69 of article 2 of the state constitution, which pro-