Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-03-19

II
the ballots, inasmuch as it violated the Be-
crecy of the ballot.
6. They knew that the supporters of Mr..
Donnelly believed that the numbering of the
ballots would prevent free and fair election,
aud would result in the intimidation of the
workmen,
Z. They had deliberately voted by large
majority not to number the ballots.
There can be but one explanation of the
intent with which they reversed this deliber-
ate action. It was done to prevent fair
election, and to give the employers of work
ingmen an opportunity to still further IN
timidate them by preserving q record of
how the men voted whose means of life de-
pended upon the good will of those who en-
ployed them; the men we'll knew that the
ballot-boxes could be opened at any time in
any real or pretended contest and the char
acter of their votes revealed. g
BOLD AND RECKLESS.
Only bold and reckless men would have
dared to set their private Judgments lsymen,
against the judgment of the district court of
Ramsey county, against the judgment of the
attorney and of the law officer of
their own city upon question of law; and
judges of election as expressed at the meet
ing of judges the day before. In doing
80 they ran counter to and de-
fed the settled opinion of the district and
State upon the question, and they numbered
the ballots in their seven precincts while
they were left unnumbered in all the other
precincts of the district, of which there were
more than three hundred. In fact, these
seven precincts were the only precincts in
the two cities, st. Paul and Minneapolis,
where there were over forty precincts, in
which the ballots were numbered in the year
1873.
CONSPIRACY AND FRAUD.
1t must be remembered that the testimony
shows that among the twenty-one judges of
election of these seven precincts, who thus
reversed the action of all the judges of the
city of the day before, there was but one
Judge who was friend of Mr.. Donnelly, (see
p. 195-19T; and even he did not swear that
he was q supporter of Mr.. Donnelly, but
only that he was understood" to be such,
(see p. 1867. By law, Mr.. Donnelly, as the
candidate of two political parties, should
have had fourteen supporters among these
twenty one judges; in effect, he had not one.
extraordinary action was therefore taken by
twenty-one judges who were the political
partisans of Mr.. Washburn; and no explana-
ton is offered by MIR. Washburn or them
selves for their course.
The very fact that in these seven precincts
Mr.. Donnelly had been deprived by the city
council of Minneapolis of all representation
among the officers conducting the election is,
in itself, a very strong proof of conspiracy
and fraud.
wORKINGMEN BULLDOZED.
It appears by the testimony of one wit
ness, Democrat, Up. 1877, that he offered
his ballot at one of these precincts and re-
quested that it be placed in the ballot-box
without being numbered; this was refused;
the judges refused to permit him to vote un-
less he voted a numbered ballot: this he de-
clined to do, and he did not vote. It appears
that large numbers of workmen did not vote
for fear of losing their places Up. 113). 1t is
an established principle of law that where
voters are kept from voting by an illegal re-
quirement of the election officers, it voids
the election at such polls. (See McCrary's
Amer. Law Elections, sec. 89.-Scranton
Borough Election, Brightly's Election Cases,
p. 1860 1t is evident that large numbers of
Democrats, from some cause, did not vote at
all at said election in that city.
Two years previously, at the Presidential
election of 1876, the vote of Minneapolis
stood as follows, (see st. Paul Pioneer Press,
November 8, 1876, in Congressional Lii
brary):
hayes. ..................... 4,O98
Iliden. ....................... 3,743