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616 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 3,
box, or be counted." These are the plain and unmis-
takable provisions of the Act of 1890, chapter 538,
under which this election was conducted. Were
these requirements complied with ? In the first place it
has been shown that the ballots used at St. Leonard's
precinct were brought there by a person unauthorized to
landle them, or have them in his custody. They were
not even in the condition in which they had reached
the President of the Board of Supervisors, who was
alone empowered to receive them. They were the bal-
lots that had been prepared for a different polling place
and were the official ballots for that precinct. In
using them they were altered and changed so as to
depart from what the law intended they should be.
It is thus seen that in no single essential did they con-
form with the requirements of the election law. They
were not the official ballots received by the officer
whose duty it was to receive them, and not being
such, under the law they became illegal as to their
use. The very plain and explicit recitals of the law
were placed there to preserve a secret ballot. Any
change in the official character of such ballots, the
law says shall nullify them, and even though voted
shall not be counted. Therefore it must be concluded
that the counting of these ballots was illegal. In
arriving at this view, your committee is sustained by
a recent decision of the Court of Appeals in 29 N. E.
Reporter, 322.
The rejection of the votes at the St. Leonard's Pre-
cinct will give the contestees majorities reaching from
150 to 171. The contestants urge that had there been
a legal election at St. Leonard's, these majorities could
have been overcome, and in support of this view present
tables showing large Republican majorities in that pre-
cinct for the past ten years. But even in 'hese years a
part of the Democratic ticket had been elected. But
this view is not sustained by the evidence because only
a small fraction over one-half of the registered voters of
the precinct offered to vote at that election, and allowing
lor the increase of the Democratic vote that occurred
in other parts of the same county, it must be inferred
that the same ratio would have prevailed at the pre-
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