The courts of a state have jurisdiction of an indictment for
illegal voting for electors of President and Vice-President of the
United States, and a person sentenced by a state court to
imprisonment upon such an indictment cannot be discharged by writ
of habeas corpus, although the indictment and sentence include
illegal voting for a representative in Congress.
This was a writ of habeas corpus granted upon the petition of
Charles Green by the circuit court of the United States to the
sergeant and jailer of the City of Manchester in the State of
Virginia, who justified his detention of the prisoner under a
judgment of the hustings or corporation court of the city
sentencing him to be imprisoned in the city jail for five weeks and
to pay a fine of five dollars upon his conviction by a jury on an
indictment charging him with unlawfully, knowingly, corruptly, and
with unlawful intent voting at an election held in that city for a
representative in Congress and for electors of President and
Vice-President of the United States on November 6, 1888, being
disqualified b y a previous conviction for petty larceny.
By the Code of Virginia of 1887, general elections are held
throughout the state on the fourth Tuesday in May and on the first
Tuesday after the first Monday in November in each year for all
officers required by law to be chosen at such elections
respectively; § 109; persons convicted of bribery at an
election, embezzlement of public funds, treason, felony, or petty
larceny are disqualified to vote; § 62; elections are by
ballot containing the names of all persons intended to
Page 134 U. S. 378
voted for and designating the office of each; § 122;
members of the House of Representatives of the United States are
chosen by the qualified voters of the respective congressional
districts at the general election in November, 1888, and in every
second year thereafter; § 52; electors for President and
Vice-President of the United States are chosen by the qualified
voters of the state at the election held on the first Tuesday after
the first Monday in November, 1888, and on the corresponding day in
each fourth year thereafter, or at such other time as may be
appointed by Congress; §§ 54, 55; and any person who
shall knowingly vote in any election district in which he does not
reside and is registered, or vote more than once at the same
election, "or, not being a qualified elector, vote at any election
with an unlawful intent," shall be punished by imprisonment in jail
not exceeding one year and by fine not exceeding $1,000. §
3851.
The circuit court was of opinion
"that the United States courts for this district have sole and
exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine the matters and things
alleged in the bill of indictment found in the said hustings court
of Manchester, upon the ground that the acts of Congress in such
case made and provided (Rev.Stat. §§ 5511, 5514) have
defined the offense charged in the said indictment and prescribed
the penalty therefor, and that the United States courts have sole
and exclusive jurisdiction thereof, and that the said hustings or
corporation court of Manchester had no jurisdiction of the matters
and things charged in the said indictment against the said Charles
Green,"
and therefore adjudged that the prisoner be discharged. The
respondent appealed to this Court.
MR. JUSTICE GRAY, after stating the facts as above, delivered
the opinion of the Court.
In this case, as in
Loney's Case, just decided,
ante, 134 U. S. 372, the
question presented is whether the courts of the State of
Virginia
Page 134 U. S. 379
had jurisdiction of the charge against the prisoner. But that is
the only respect in which the two cases have any resemblance. By
the Constitution of the United States, the electors for President
and Vice-President in each state are appointed by the state in such
manner as its legislature may direct; their number is equal to the
whole number of senators and representatives to which the state is
entitled in Congress; no senator or representative, or person
holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall
be appointed an elector, and the electors meet and vote within the
state, and thence certify and transmit their votes to the seat of
government of the United States. The only rights and duties,
expressly vested by the Constitution in the national government,
with regard to the appointment or the votes of presidential
electors, are by those provisions which authorize Congress to
determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which
they shall give their votes, and which direct that the certificates
of their votes shall be opened by the president of the senate in
the presence of the two houses of Congress, and the votes shall
then be counted. Constitution, Article II, Section 1; Amendments,
Art. 12.
The sole function of the presidential electors is to cast,
certify, and transmit the vote of the state for President and
Vice-President of the nation. Although the electors are appointed
and act under and pursuant to the Constitution of the United
States, they are no more officers or agents of the United States
than are the members of the state legislatures when acting as
electors of federal senators, or the people of the states when
acting as electors of representatives in Congress. Constitution,
Article I, Sections 2, 3.
In accord with the provisions of the Constitution, Congress has
determined the time as of which the number of electors shall be
ascertained, and the days on which they shall be appointed and
shall meet and vote in the states, and on which their votes shall
be counted in Congress; has provided for the filling by each state,
in such manner as its legislature may prescribe, of vacancies in
its college of electors; and has regulated the manner of certifying
and transmitting their votes to
Page 134 U. S. 380
the seat of the national government, and the course of
proceeding in there opening and counting them. Rev.Stat.
§§ 131-143; Acts of February 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 373, c.
90; Oct. 19, 1888, 25 Stat. 613, c. 1216.
Congress has never undertaken to interfere with the manner of
appointing electors, or, where (according to the now general usage)
the mode of appointment prescribed by the law of the state is
election by the people, to regulate the conduct of such election or
to punish any fraud in voting for electors, but has left these
matters to the control of the states.
Sections 5511 and 5514 of the Revised Statutes, referred to in
the order of the circuit court, were, as observed by this Court in
Coy's Case, 127 U. S. 731,
127 U. S. 751,
made for the security and protection of elections held for
representatives or delegates in Congress, and do not impair or
restrict the power of the state to punish fraudulent voting in the
choice of its electors.
The question whether the state has concurrent power with the
United States to punish fraudulent voting for representatives in
Congress is not presented by the record before us. It may be that
it has.
Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.
S. 371. But even if the state has no such power in
regard to votes for representatives in Congress, it clearly has
such power in regard to votes for presidential electors, unaffected
by anything in the Constitution and laws of the United States, and
the including, in one indictment and sentence, of illegal voting
both for a representative in Congress and for presidential
electors, does not go to the jurisdiction of the state court, but
is, at the worst, mere error which cannot be inquired into by writ
of habeas corpus.
Ex parte Crouch, 112 U.
S. 178;
In re Coy, 127
U. S. 756,
127 U. S.
759.
Judgment reversed and case remanded for further proceedings
in conformity with this opinion.
