When the case in question has been disposed of, the joint session is resumed and the counting continued.

7.  In the joint meeting, the president of the senate has authority to preserve order.  No debate is allowed, and no question can be put, “except to either house on a motion to withdraw.”

8.  When discussing an objection, in separate session, no member can speak more than once, and then for not longer than five minutes.  The entire time for discussion is limited to two hours.

9.  Provision is made for the seating of every one entitled to a seat on the floor of the house; and the act declares that “such joint meeting shall not be dissolved until the count of electoral votes shall be completed and the result declared.”

Some time after the passage of the law, it was discovered that a strange omission had been made.  By the old law, the electors in each state were required to appoint a messenger to take one of the certificates of votes cast, and deliver it to the president of the senate on or before the first Wednesday in January.  By the new law the electors do not meet until the second Monday in January.  The inconsitency was remedied, however, by a supplementary act, providing that certificates shall be forwarded “as soon as possible,” and authorizing the president of the senate to send for missing certificates on the fourth Monday in January.

HOW FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE ARE EXTRADITED.

Extradition is “the delivering up to justice of fugitive criminals by the authorities of one state or country to those of another.” [Footnote:  Lalor’s Cyclopedia of Political Science.]

The duty of extradition between the states of this republic is imposed by the federal constitution, IV. 2; and the mode of procedure is prescribed by an act of congress passed in 1793.  The term “other crimes” used in the constitution is generally interpreted “so as to include any offense against the laws of the state or territory making the demand.”  On the question whether the executive upon whom demand is made is bound to comply, the federal courts have decided that his duty in the matter is imperative; that he must deliver up the fugitive, unless the accused shall also be under prosecution for breach of the laws of the state to which he has fled.

The procedure is this:  “The accused must be indicted in the state in which the crime was committed, or a charge must be brought against him before a magistrate, who, if satisfied that the charge is true, issues a warrant for the arrest of the criminal.  A copy of the indictment or affidavit is forwarded to the executive of the state, and he issues to the executive of the state to which the fugitive has gone, a requisition for his surrender.  If the executive upon whom the requisition is made is satisfied that the papers are regular and the proof of the crime sufficient,” he issues a warrant “for the arrest and delivery of the accused to the agent of the state making the demand.”