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1336 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 29,
proue one of the exceped defects, and there be no affirmative
pooof that that the election was "otherwise valid" in either
ease the law positively declares the election invalid.
Note, also, that in Section 227, the provision is that no
election shall be valid "unless held under and in conformity
with the provisions of this Article." If, therefore, saving
the exceptions of Section 228, the election was in any single
otl er particular not in conformity with the provisions of the
Article it is not valid.
It is to be observed that this stringent law declaring elec-
tions not valid unless held in conformity with its provisions,
applies only to the City of Baltimore, and was passed at the
memorable session of 1859 and '60, at which the election of
the November preceding was declared void, and the delegates
returned thereunder unseated for the same causes, (fraud and
violence,) which invalidates the election held in said city in
November, 1875.
In the opinion of the Legislature, then, Baltimore city re-
quired to be governed with a tight rein—an opinion fully
warranted by the facts which produced the enactment of the
law, no less than by the facts now shown in the evidence.
The apparent design of the Legislature was to take away all
temptation to the commission of fraud, violence and other il-
legalities, by declaring absolutely void all elections in the
City of Baltimore which might be in the slightest degree
tainted with these diseases of the bo ly politic.
Passing, for the present, those defects that apply to only a
portion of the precincts, there are certain requirements of the
law positively proved in the testimony of Marriott Boswell,
before given, not to have been conformed to in a single pre-
cinct in the whole city. And therefore the election in every
precinct is by the express terms of the law absolutely void.
The Public General Laws, Article 35, Secs. 9, 10 and 11,
as amended and re-enacted, and in force on the day of the
tate State election, are as follows:
"9. Every judge of election, at every election to be hereaf-
ter held in pursuance of law, before he proceeds to take or re-
ceive any-vote, shall take the following oath or affirmation:
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