1892. ] OF THE SENATE. 329

ing in this, that a majority of election Judges and one
Ballot Clerk were without the semblance of Authority
to conduct the election.

The contestant endeavors to meet this objection by
relying on the provision of Article 33, section 45, of
Public General Laws, which provides that if any of
the Judges should not ''attend at the place of elec-
tion at the time prescribed for opening the election"
then the other Judge or Judges may swear in and
qualify other persons to act as Judges. This section
can have no application to this case. The Judges did
attend, &c., and from 8 A. M, to 12 1/2 P. M., tendered
themselves ready to receive every legal ballot offered,
and were surplanted by the Republican Judge solely
because of their refusal to receive illegal ballots.

Your committee can conceive of no case where a
more flagrant violation of law could be committed
than in the displacement of regularly qualified election
Judges and Ballot Clerks, and substituting in their
place by the Republican Judge persons who were
clothed with no lawful authority to conduct an elec-
tion. The committee are of the opinion that the pro-
visions of law relating to the qualification of the elec-
tion officers are prescribed in the Act of 1890, chapter
538, are mandatory and not only directory, if this is
not so, then the law is a sham, and the objects to be
attained by the new system of conducting elections all
go for naught. It will not do to say that those officers
thus illegally selected and qualified did their duty
and no fraud resulted; the answer to this is that
their appointment and qualification were in direct
opposition to the provisions of law, and that the pre-
cautions which the Legislature has prescribed to
ensure secrecy and fairness were violated. It is not
a question as to the consequences which resulted in
this case from a disregard of the law, but the danger
is in permitting as a precedent the counting of a vote
which was cast in defiance and violation of the pro-
vision of the law.

2. Every writer upon the law of elections, as well
as all leading cases in the courts of this country and
England, hold that the law as to the place and time of
holding election is mandatory and must be strictly
observed and followed. If the time has been mater-