1318 ARTICLE 33.

committee acting for or in his behalf, so guilty of corrupt practices, such
election shall be void, except as hereinafter provided, and in case of such
void election the Governor shall, within five days after the receipt of such
decision, issue his proclamation declaring such election void, and the va-
cancy in the office to have been filled by said election shall be filled in the
same manner as would be required by law in case said vacancy had arisen
from the death of the successful candidate after his election. If any candi-
date shall have been so found or decided to have been so guilty in person
of corrupt practices, he shall be ineligible to election or appointment to
any public office or employment for the period of four years from the
date of said election; but the mere finding or decision that his political
agent was so guilty shall not render him ineligible to office; but where the
judge or judges shall decide or certify upon his or their jury's findings
in any case that any such successful candidate was guilty of corrupt prac-
tices only in the person of his agent, and that (a) no corrupt practice was
committed by the candidate personally and the offense was committed
contrary to his order and without his sanction or connivance; (b) the
offense was of a trivial, unimportant and limited character; (c) in all
other respects such election was free from corrupt practice on the part of
such candidate and of his political agent, then the election of such candi-
date shall not be void, nor shall the candidate be subject to any ineligibility
therefor.

An. Code, sec. 176. 1908, ch. 122.

188. The courts in which such petitions shall be filed shall have au-
thority to tax the costs as in equity cases, and also to subposna witnesses
and require them to testify as in other civil cases, and to compel by
subpoena duces tecum the production for examination of any books or
papers of any kind, or of any other thing which may be required or de-
sirable in the conduct of such inquiry. In any proceeding held under the
provisions of this or the preceding section, no witness shall be excused
from answering any question or producing any book, paper or other thing
on the ground or claim that his answer or the thing produced, or to be
produced by him, may tend to incriminate or degrade him, or render him
liable to a penalty, but his answer, or the thing produced by him shall
not be used in any proceeding against him, except in a prosecution for
perjury in so testifying.

An. Code, sec. 177. 1908, ch. 122.

189. It shall be the duty of the state's attorney of Baltimore city to
prosecute, by the regular course of criminal procedure, any person whom
he may believe to be guilty of having violated any of the provisions of this
sub-title within the said city, or any resident of said city, who may have
violated any provisions of this sub-title within said city or in any other
part of the State. And it shall be the duty of the state's attorney of each
county of this State to prosecute, by the regular course of criminal pro-
cedure, any person whom he may believe to be guilty of having violated
any of the provisions of this sub-title within the county for which said