vote for the contestants; and that the number of legal voters so
refused, and who offered to vote for the contestants, would, if
received, give the contestants a large majority of the legal
voters," your committee find is sustained in part, and to an
extent to authorize the majority of your committee to declare
that, in their judgment, the seats of two of the sitting mem-
bers ought to be declared vacant, and that the same should
be awarded to two of the contestants.

By a reference to the testimony spread upon the records of
the contestants, it will be found that in Districts Nos. 1, 2, 3,
5, 10, 13, 14 and 15, a large number of legal and registered
voters, who presented themselves at the polls on the day of
election, and offered their votes, were refused and rejected by
the judges, on a variety of unwarrantable and frivolous pre-
texts, the main one being the vague and general charge of
disloyalty; although these voters had been duly registered
in 1866, at which registration their qualifications as voters,
under the Constitution and laws of this State, had been fully
inquired into and determined, and their right to vote finally
ascertained and fixed beyond challenge or controversy.

The majority of your committee reached the conclusion, af-
ter a full review, and a protracted discussion of the constitu-
tional provisions bearing on this subject, and of the registra-
tion law, that the registration of 1866 was binding and con-
clusive on the judges of election; and it was incompetent and
illegal for them to disregard it, and enter upon a trial of the
voters' qualifications, or to put any oaths or tests whatever,
as conditions of exercising the elective franchise.

The sole duty under existing laws, being confined to the
reception and counting of votes, and making returns of the
elections—purely ministerial offices, and if competent to go
into an investigation at all, they are confined to the question
of identity. Whether the voter claiming to vote under a cer-
tain name is the person he professes himself to be; to that
extent and no further does the judicial power formerly pos-
sessed by the judges of election now go under the constitution
of 1864, and the Registration Act of 1865, Chapter 174. Un-
der this view of the law, the majority of your committee hold
that the rejection of the votes in the above mentioned Dis-
tricts, on the grounds on which they were rejected, was ille-
gal; that the same ought to have been received and counted,
as they were tendered, in which case the result would have
been materially different from that announced in the returns.

By reference to these returns, a copy of which, under the
seal of Allegany county court, is herewith appended and made
part of this report, it appears that the following vote was
cast for the Contestants and sitting members respectively, to
wit: