REPORT. STATE OF MAINE. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, THE Committee on Elections to whom was referred the cases of William Hunnewell and Corydon Chadwick, each claiming a right to a seat in this House from the town of China, in the County of Kennebec, having had the same before them, and having investigated the facts, and duly deliberated upon their bearing, ask leave to REPORT. That they have, during a laborious and protracted examination, of several days continuance, given to the subject their careful attention, with the anxious desire of ascertaining from the voluminous testimony submitted to them, the true state of the facts and the justice of the case. In the result to be submitted to you a majority of your Committee concur, and it may be proper in communicating that result, to submit to the House without unnecesary particularity of detail, the leading facts which have brought them to such conclusion. No choice of Representative having been effected in said China on the day of the annual Election, to wit, on the ninth day of September last, an adjourned meeting was held on the sixteenth day of said month, and the votes as returned and certified by the Selectmen and Town Clerk, stood as follows, viz: The whole number thrown, four hundred and seventy-seven. William Hunnewell had two hundred and forty. Corydon Chadwick had two hundred and thirty-six. Sanford A. Kingsbury one. Upon the development of the evidence, it was contended on the part of the remonstrants that there should be added to the votes returned for said Chadwick three votes given for him, and omitted to be counted through the miscount of James H. Brainard, the Town Clerk, in a pile counted by him. That two more votes for said Chadwick were also omitted and brushed off the table by T. B. Lincoln, one of the Selectmen, and consequently not counted. That two more votes tendered for said Chadwick during the balloting; one by Oliver Thompson and the other by H. W. Furguson, both claiming to be legal voters in said town, whose votes were rejected; and that there should be deducted from the votes returned for said Hunnewell the votes given in for him by three persons of the names of Handy, Casey and Ward, on the ground that they were not legal voters in said town. It was also contended, that there was unfairness in receiving certain votes after those before received had been counted and the result known, and refusing a certain other vote, or upon its being offered immediately announcing the result, without extending a proper opportunity to said voter to put in his ballot. It was proved that the votes received on the day above referred to, were turned from the box upon a temporary table, formed by placing a door about six and one half feet long and two and one half feet wide, upon the top of some high seats, for the purpose of sorting, counting, &c. That they were sorted into three piles. The centre pile upon the table, containing the votes for Hunnewell, and the piles near each end of the table, containing those for Chadwick. Dr. Brainard undertook to count the pile to the left of the centre. He testified that he counted, and made one hundred and twenty-eight votes in his pile, or the pile counted by him for Chadwick. He counted them but once, and none of the other officers of the town counted this pile at all. Gen. Alfred Marshall, testified that in consequence of a want of confidence in the former counting of votes, and in the accuracy of Dr. Brainard, he determined to watch and count after |
