The sections of the Revised Statutes which the bill, if approved, would repeal or amend are part of an act approved May 30, 1870, and amended February 28, 1871, entitled “An act to enforce the rights of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union, and for other purposes.”  All of the provisions of the above-named acts which it is proposed in this bill to repeal or modify relate to the Congressional elections.  The remaining portion of the law, which will continue in force after the enactment of this measure, is that which provides for the appointment, by a judge of the circuit court of the United States, of two supervisors of election in each election district at any Congressional election, on due application of citizens who desire, in the language of the law, “to have such election guarded and scrutinized.”  The duties of the supervisors will be to attend at the polls at all Congressional elections, and to remain after the polls are open until every vote cast has been counted; but they will “have no authority to make arrests or to perform other duties than to be in the immediate presence of the officers holding the election and to witness all their proceedings, including the counting of the votes and the making of a return thereof.”  The part of the election law which will be repealed by the approval of this bill includes those sections which give authority to the supervisors of elections “to personally scrutinize, count, and canvass each ballot,” and all the sections which confer authority upon the United States marshals and deputy marshals in connection with the Congressional elections.  The enactment of this bill will also repeal section 5522 of the criminal statutes of the United States, which was enacted for the protection of United States officers engaged in the discharge of their duties at the Congressional elections.  This section protects supervisors and marshals in the performance of their duties by making the obstruction or the assaulting of these officers, or any interference with them, by bribery or solicitation or otherwise, crimes against the United States.

The true meaning and effect of the proposed legislation are plain.  The supervisors, with the authority to observe and witness the proceedings at the Congressional elections, will be left, but there will be no power to protect them, or to prevent interference with their duties, or to punish any violation of the law from which their powers are derived.  If this bill is approved, only the shadow of the authority of the United States at the national elections will remain; the substance will be gone.  The supervision of the elections will be reduced to a mere inspection, without authority on the part of the supervisors to do any act whatever to make the election a fair one.  All that will be left to the supervisors is the permission to have such oversight of the elections as political parties are in the habit of exercising without any authority of law, in order to prevent their opponents from obtaining unfair advantages.  The object of the bill is to destroy any control whatever by the United States over the Congressional elections.