The substance of the statute is, as to registration: 

“If any such officer shall ... knowingly and wilfully register as a voter any person not entitled to be registered, or refuse to so register any person entitled to be registered ... every such person shall be deemed guilty of a crime.”

Act of May 31, 1870, Sec. 20, As Amended by Act of Feb. 28, 1871, Sec. 1.

And as to voting: 

“If any person shall ... knowingly and wilfully receive the vote of any person not entitled to vote, or refuse to receive the vote of any person entitled to vote ... every such person shall be deemed guilty of a crime.”

Act of May 31, 1870, Sec. 19.

To bring an inspector within either of these sections he must know as matter of fact, that the person offering to vote, or to be registered, is not entitled to be registered or to vote.

The inspectors were compelled to decide the question, and to decide it instantly, with no chance for examination or even consultation—­and if they decided in good faith, according to the best of their ability, they are excused, whether they decided correctly or not in point of law.

This is too well settled to admit of dispute—­settled by authority as well as by the plainest principles of justice and common sense.

The law never yet placed a public officer in a position where he would be compelled to decide a doubtful legal question, and to act upon his decision, subject to the penalty of fine or imprisonment if he chanced to err in his decision.

All that is ever required of an officer, so placed, whether a judicial or ministerial officer, so far as is necessary to escape any imputations of crime, is good faith.

Ministerial officers may be required, in some cases to act at their peril as to civil responsibilities, but as to criminal responsibilities never.

Inspectors of elections, however, acting in good faith, incur neither civil nor criminal responsibilities.

In Jenkins vs.  Waldron (11 John 114), which was an action on the case against inspectors of election for refusing to receive the vote of the plaintiff, a duly qualified voter, it was held, that the action would not lie without proving malice.  Spencer, J., delivering the opinion of the Court, closes as follows:  “It would in our opinion be opposed to all the principles of law, justice and sound policy, to hold that officers called upon to exercise their deliberate judgments, are answerable for a mistake in law, either civilly or criminally, where their motives are pure and untainted with fraud or malice.”

The same point precisely was decided in a like case, in the Supreme Court of this State recently and Jenkins vs.  Waldron approved.

          Goetchens vs.  Mathewson, 5 Lansing, 214.