1900. ] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 487

timony produced on the part of the contestant fail to
show any such fraud, but, on the contrary, all of said
witnesses admitted that there was no fraud at said elec-
tion, and that the ballots were counted fairly in the
presence of watchers, and that the returns were signed
by all of the election officials, both Democrats and Re-
publicans. In the face of this testimony, I submit that
the recount made of such ballots should not be allowed
to stand. Especially do I make this claim regarding 49
ballots, which were properly marked for the contestee,
Mr. Merrick, and yet were rejected by a majority vote
of the Committee. Counting these ballots, Mr. Merrick
would have a clear majority of 27 votes.

I wish also to call the attention of this Honorable
Body to the fact that 107 votes were rejected by the com-
mittee in Laurel district alone, in which district, as I am
informed by the contestee, he is prepared to prove by the
testimony of both the Democratic and Republican judges
of election, that there was no dispute whatsoever at the
time of the counting of the ballots on the night of elec-
tion regarding any ballots cast at said polling place ex-
cept three, one of which was counted for the Democratic
ticket, one for the Republican ticket, and the third, hav-
ing been identified to the judges as a ballot cast for the
Republican ticket, was so counted. I also wish to state
that the ballots contained in two of the ballot boxes were
counted by the committee without a quorum of the com-
mittee present.

There has been no opportunity given to the contestee
to produce any testimony which he might desire, for the
purpose of showing the fairness of the election in the
districts about which no testimony was taken by the con-
testant. In all of the districts that were counted, the
result of the count dii not tally with the official reports
as shown by the Sun Almanac, the only authority which
we had in the committee room. Again, in one district
there was one vote counted more than the number of
names on the poll list. In the remaining districts the
number of ballots produced were 44 ballots less than
names on the poll lists.

For these reasons, even assuming that this contest has
to be decided upon the counting of the ballots, I am of