[Deschler's Precedents, Volume 2, Chapters 7 - 9]
[Chapter 9.  Election Contests]
[M. Summaries of Election Contests, 1931-72]
[Â§ 64. Ninety-second Congress, 1971-72]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[Page 1261-1271]
 
                               CHAPTER 9
 
                           Election Contests
 
               M. SUMMARIES OF ELECTION CONTESTS, 1931-72
 
Sec. 64. Ninety-second Congress, 1971-72

Sec. 64.1 Tunno v Veysey

    On Nov. 9, 1971, Mr. Watkins W. Abbitt, of Virginia, from the 
Committee on House Administration, submitted the committee report, 
House Report No. 626, on the contested election case of David A. Tunno 
v Victor V. Veysey from the 38th Congressional District of California. 
Mr. Veysey was certified on Dec. 17, 1970, by the secretary of the 
State of California as elected to the office of U.S. Representative in 
Congress from the district at the general election held on Nov. 3, 
1970. The credentials of Mr. Veysey were presented to the House of 
Representatives and he appeared, took the oath of office, and was 
seated without objection, on Jan. 21, 1971.(8)
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 8. 117 Cong. Rec. 13, 92d Cong. 1st Sess.

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[[Page 1262]]

    The official canvass of the district showed that a total number of 
173,163 votes were cast in the congressional election in the district. 
Of this total number of votes cast, Mr. Veysey received 87,479 votes 
and Mr. Tunno, the contestant, received 85,684 votes. Mr. Veysey's 
majority consisted then of 1,795 votes.
    The contestant served notice of contest on the contestee by mail on 
Dec. 14, 1970. At the same time a notice of intent to contest was filed 
by the contestant's representative with the Clerk of the House for 
delivery to the Committee on House Administration.
    While the contestant claimed the seat as required by 2 USC 
Sec. Sec. 382 and 383,(9) in his notice of contest, the 
relief sought by the contestant, as set forth in his notice, was that 
the seat be declared vacant. The notice stated:
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 9. Pub. L. No. 91-138, Sec. Sec. 3, 4; 83 Stat. 284 (Dec. 5, 1969). 
        This was the first case arising under the Federal Contested 
        Elections Act of 1969.
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        Contestant requests the House of Representatives of the United 
    States, 92d Congress, first session, declare a vacancy in the 
    office of Member of the House of Representatives, U.S., 38th 
    Congressional District, State of California, and direct the proper 
    executive authority of the State of California to issue a writ of 
    election ordering a new election to fill said vacancy of said 
    office of Member, House of Representatives of the United States, 
    38th Congressional District, State of California.

    The contestant claimed that the affidavits of registration of some 
11,137 voters in Riverside County, California, had been wrongfully and 
illegally canceled, depriving approximately 10,600 qualified voters of 
the right to vote. The notice stated: (10)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. H. Rept. No. 92-626, submitted Nov. 9, 1971.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        1. On or about August 15, 1970, the elections supervisor, 
    Riverside County, State of California (hereinafter referred to as 
    ``supervisor'') wrongfully and illegally canceled the affidavits of 
    registration of approximately 11,137 voters of Riverside County, 
    State of California. As a result of said illegal and wrongful 
    cancellation of said affidavits of registration, approximately 
    10,616 qualified voters of Riverside County, State of California, 
    were precluded from voting at said last preceding general election 
    for Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the 38th 
    district.

    From facts set out in the committee report, it appeared that local 
California election officials may have misinterpreted a state election 
statute, a mistake which may have disenfranchised approximately 10,600 
voters. There were no facts indicating how many, if any, of these 
voters would have voted, had they not been disenfranchised, nor was

[[Page 1263]]

there any indication, of course, of how they would have voted. The 
report declared:

        On Tuesday, May 11, 1971, the Subcommittee on Elections met to 
    hear arguments on the motion to dismiss the contest submitted by 
    the contestee, Victor V. Veysey. Opening statements and rebuttal 
    statements were given by the attorney for the contestant, Mr. 
    Robert J. Timlin and the attorney for the contestee, James H. 
    Kreiger. The contestant, Mr. David Tunno, and the contestee, 
    Congressman Victor V. Veysey, also submitted statements.
        The new Federal Contested Election Act, Public Law 91-138, 83 
    Stat. 284, provides in section 4(b)(3) this defense to the 
    contestee, ``Failure of notice of contest to state grounds 
    sufficient to change result of election.'' This defense was raised 
    by the present contestee by way of a motion to dismiss. This 
    provision was included in the new act because it has been the 
    experience of Congress that exhaustive hearings and investigations 
    have, in the past, been conducted only to find that if the 
    contestant had been required at the outset to make proper 
    allegations with sufficient supportive evidence that could most 
    readily have been garnered at the time of the election such further 
    investigation would have been unnecessary and unwarranted.
        Under the new law then the present contestant, and any future 
    contestant, when challenged by motion to dismiss, must have 
    presented, in the first instance, sufficient allegations and 
    evidence to justify his claim to the seat in order to overcome the 
    motion to dismiss.
        The major problem raised is, on the basis of the contestant's 
    allegations and evidence, are a sufficient number of potential 
    votes in actual contention to warrant the committee granting the 
    relief sought and declaring the seat vacant and calling for a new 
    election? This may be restated as, what standards has the House of 
    Representatives applied in contests wherein declaring a vacancy was 
    either contemplated or actually done where registration 
    irregularities were alleged.
        With regard to the problem, the contested election case of 
    Carney v. Smith [6 Cannon's Precedents  911 in the 63d Congress 
    considered a request that the seat be declared vacant and in 
    response to the request set forth the following standards as a 
    criteria for taking such action.
        We do not believe that a committee of this House, looking for 
    the truth to determine who in fact was elected by the voters, 
    should, on account of this irregularity, disfranchise the electors 
    of this township. No question is made but that the ballots cast in 
    this precinct were cast by legal voters and in good faith. Nor is 
    it claimed that the contestee received a single vote more than was 
    intended to be cast for him, or that the contestant lost a single 
    vote. We do not believe that the facts warrant the rejection of the 
    entire poll of this township, nor does the law as practiced in 
    almost every jurisdiction warrant such a result. McCrary on 
    Elections [George McCrary, A Treatise on the American Law of 
    Elections, Chicago, Callaghan & Co., 1897] section 488, says:

            The power to reject an entire poll is certainly a dangerous 
        power, and, though it belongs to whatever tribunal has 
        jurisdiction to pass upon the merits of a contested-election

[[Page 1264]]

        case, it should be exercised only in an extreme case; that is 
        to say, where it is impossible to ascertain with reasonable 
        certainty the true vote.

        Paine's Treatise on the Law of Elections [Halbert Paine, A 
    Treatise on the Law of Elections, Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 
    1890] section 497, says:

            Ignorance, inadvertence, mistake, or even intentional wrong 
        on the part of the local officers should not be permitted to 
        disfranchise a district.

        Section 498 says:

            The rules prescribed by the law for conducting an election 
        are designed chiefly to afford an opportunity for the free and 
        fair exercise of the elective franchise, to prevent illegal 
        votes, and to ascertain with certainty the result.
            The departure from the mode prescribed will not vitiate an 
        election, if the irregularity does not deprive any legal voter 
        of his vote, or admit an illegal vote, or cast uncertainty on 
        the result and has not been occasioned by the agency of a party 
        seeking to derive a benefit from them.
            Power to throw out the vote of an entire precinct should be 
        exercised only under circumstances which demonstrate beyond a 
        reasonable doubt that there has been such a disregard of law or 
        such fraud that it is impossible to determine what votes were 
        lawful or unlawful, or to arrive at any result whatever, or 
        whether a great body of voters have been prevented from 
        exercising their rights by violence or intimidation. (Case of 
        Daley v. Petroff, 10 Philadelphia Rep., 289.)
            There is nothing which will justify the striking out of an 
        entire division but an inability to decipher the returns or a 
        showing that not a single legal vote was polled or that no 
        election was legally held. (In Chadwick v. Melvin, Bright's 
        Election Cases, 489.)
            Nothing short of an impossibility of ascertaining for whom 
        the majority of votes were given ought to vacate an election, 
        especially if by such decision the people must, on account of 
        their distant and dispersed situation, necessarily go 
        unrepresented for a long period of time. [McCrary, A Treatise 
        on the Law of Elections, 489.]

        If there has been a fair vote and an honest count, the election 
    is not to be declared void because the force conducting it were not 
    duly chosen or sworn or qualified. [6 Cannon's Precedents Sec. 91.]
        In the contested election case of Reid v. Julian [2 Hinds' 
    Precedents Sec. Sec. 881, 882], 41st Congress the committee in its 
    report, House Report 116 stated that:

            It has long been held by all the judicial tribunals of the 
        country, as well as by the decisions of Congress and the 
        legislatures of the several States, that an entire poll should 
        always be rejected for any one of the three following reasons:
            1. Want of authority in the election board.
            2. Fraud in conducting the election.
            3. Such irregularities or misconduct as rendered the result 
        uncertain. [2 Hinds' Precedents Sec. 881].

        In the Michigan election case of Beakes v. Bacon in the 65th 
    Congress [6 Cannon's Precedents Sec. 144], the same standards were 
    reiterated.
        Because the contestant's allegations and the relief he seeks 
    fall under No. 3, ``Such irregularities or misconduct as render the 
    result uncertain,'' it is necessary to survey those instances in 
    contested election cases wherein ``such

[[Page 1265]]

    irregularities or misconduct . . .'' involved registration 
    procedures. Consideration of the above-mentioned cases will, of 
    necessity, involve an ancillary problem, the problem of the 
    potential voter, because the House in its consideration of 
    irregularities and misconduct has traditionally dealt not only with 
    such irregularities and misconduct in a vacuum but also with their 
    effect on the election, the effect of the irregularities on the 
    potential voter, and the amount of proof necessary to overcome the 
    regular election returns as a result of such irregularities.
        It should be noted as a preface to the contests involving 
    registration procedures that in these the contestant had made an 
    attempt to show with a great deal of specificity how those who were 
    disfranchised by the irregularities in registration would have 
    voted had they been given the opportunity and that, in general, the 
    contests revolved around this point rather than around the mere 
    fact of irregularity or misconduct on the part of the registration 
    officials. The fact that the contestant in the present case makes 
    absolutely no attempt to make such a showing as to how those who 
    were disfranchised by being stricken from the registration lists 
    would have voted had they been given the opportunity thus removes 
    his case somewhat from the scope of the precedents. The problem 
    lies basically in the fact that the contestant does not carry 
    forward his claim to the seat.
        One contest which concerns itself with almost the same issues 
    that are involved in the present contest is Wilson v. McLaurin [2 
    Hinds' Precedents Sec. 1075] which arose out of an election in 
    South Carolina for a seat in the 54th Congress. In the Wilson case 
    the committee found that a South Carolina registration law 
    needlessly disfranchised a significant number of otherwise 
    qualified voters. The problems that the committee was then 
    confronted with were (1) should the seat be declared vacant because 
    of irregularities and (2) how to treat the potential vote of these 
    individuals who should have been allowed to vote. In the following 
    passage which is taken from the committee report, House Report 
    1566, 54th Congress first sess., particular attention should be 
    paid to the manner in which the contestant attempted to prove that 
    his claim to the seat was justified and the standards which the 
    committee adopted in regard to such offers of proof.

            A majority of this committee has reached the conclusion 
        that the voters of the district now in consideration, who were 
        qualified under the constitution of South Carolina and who were 
        rejected under color of the enforcement of the registration 
        law, are entitled to be heard in this contest.
            In this conclusion no violence is done to the doctrine that 
        ``where the proper authorities of a State have given a 
        construction to their own statutes that construction will be 
        followed by the Federal authorities.'' While the supreme court 
        of South Carolina has not passed decisively upon the statute in 
        question the people themselves, the highest authority in that 
        State have decreed its disappearance from the statute book.
            From this standpoint we look for the course to be followed. 
        Shall the election be set aside and the seat in question 
        vacated? Under the authorities we think not.

            Beyond doubt the usual formalities of an election were for 
        the most part observed. No substantial miscount of

[[Page 1266]]

        votes actually cast is alleged. There are no charges of 
        violence or intimidation seriously affecting the result which 
        have been verified. If fraud be alleged, under sanction of 
        legislative enactment, it was a general fraud and the returns 
        are in general unchallenged for correctness. The votes actually 
        cast are not in controversy; the votes not cast are the ones 
        presented for computation.
            [McCrary], Treatise on the American Law of Elections, in 
        section 483, says--
            ``The election is only to be set aside when it is 
        impossible from any evidence within reach to ascertain the true 
        result--when neither from the returns, nor from other proof, 
        nor from all together can the truth be determined.''
            The same authority quotes the following (sec. 489):
            ``Nothing short of the impossibility of ascertaining for 
        whom the majority of votes were given ought to vacate an 
        election.''
            It is a matter of serious import and precedent to introduce 
        into an election the count of a large disfranchised class. But 
        if the principle is good as to 4 or 40 or 400 it should 
        certainly be no less available for a large number; or, briefly, 
        the number is immaterial if capable of correct computation.
            In the case of Waddill v. Wise, [2 Hinds' Precedents 
        Sec. 1026] reported by the Committee on Elections to the House 
        in the 51st Congress, the doctrine is discussed, the authority 
        is collated, and the opinion adopted by the House expressed in 
        these words ( p. 224):
            ``If the fraudulent exclusion of votes would, if 
        successful, secure to the party of the wrongdoer a temporary 
        seat in Congress, and the only penalty for detection in the 
        wrong would be merely a new election, giving another chance for 
        the exercise of similar tactics, such practices would be at a 
        great premium and an election indefinitely prevented. But if 
        where such acts are done the votes are counted upon clear proof 
        aliunde the wrong is at once corrected in this House and no 
        encouragement is given to such dangerous and disgraceful 
        methods.''
            In following this opinion the testimony is presented for 
        scrutiny.
            A careful examination has been made of a record which 
        covers 683 closely printed pages. The contestant claims to be 
        allowed the votes of several thousand alleged voters, whose 
        names are given, but whose qualifications rest upon varying 
        testimony. These names of voters appear in lists executed in 
        most of the election precincts on the day of the election, 
        signed by the parties or by authorization, and (with few 
        exceptions) are appended to a form of petition, which is as 
        follows:
            ``To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of 
        the United States in Congress assembled:
            ``The petition of the subscribers, citizens of the State of 
        South Carolina, respectfully sheweth:
            ``That your petitioners are over the age of twenty-one (21) 
        years and male residents of the county of __________, and the 
        voting precinct of __________, in the county and State 
        aforesaid, and are legally qualified to register and vote.
            ``That on this the sixth day of November eighteen hundred 
        and ninety four, they did present themselves at said voting 
        precinct in order to vote for Member of Congress, and that they 
        were denied the right to vote.
            ``That your petitioners have made every reasonable effort 
        to become qualified to vote according to the registration law 
        of this State, but have been denied an equal chance and the 
        same opportunity to register as are accorded to others of their 
        fellow-citizens.

[[Page 1267]]

            ``Your petitioners desired and intended to vote for Joshua 
        E. Wilson for Member of Congress.
            ``Wherefore your petitioners pray that you investigate the 
        facts herein stated and the practical workings of the 
        registration and election laws of this State and devise some 
        means to secure to us the free exercise of the rights 
        guaranteed to us by the constitution of this State and the laws 
        and Constitution of the United States, and your petitioners 
        will ever pray, etc., etc.''
            These petitions are not usually verified by affidavit, but 
        are generally supplemented by testimony of those who had them 
        in charge, with such explanations and corroborations as the 
        witnesses could give.
            It is considered by a majority of this committee that these 
        lists are not per se evidence in the pending contest. They are 
        declarations, important parts of which should be proven in 
        accordance with usual legal forms. It is not impossible so to 
        do, and consequently we think it is necessary for reaching 
        trustworthy results.
            Under the authority of Vallandigham v. Campbell (1 
        Bartlett, p. 31) these declarations might serve a use beyond a 
        mere list for verification. For it was there held--
            ``The law is settled that the declaration of a voter as to 
        how he voted or intended to vote, made at the time, is 
        competent testimony on the point.''
            We propose to compute the ballots of those who were 
        entitled to cast them, and there is ample support in a line of 
        authorities and precedents. A few only are selected.
            Delano v. Morgan (2 Bartlett, 170), Hogan v. Pile (20 
        Bartlett, 285), Niblack v. Walls (Forty-second Congress, 104, 
        January, 1873), Bell v. Snyder (Smith's Rep., 251), are 
        uniformly for--
            ``the rule, which is well settled, that where a legal voter 
        offers to vote for a particular candidate, and uses due 
        diligence in endeavoring to do so, and is prevented by fraud, 
        violence, or intimidation from depositing his ballot, his vote 
        shall be counted.''
            In Bisbee, Jr. v. Finley [2 Hinds' Precedents 
        Sec. Sec. 977-981], it was stated--
            ``as a question of law we do not understand it to be 
        controverted that a vote offered by an elector and illegally 
        rejected should be counted as if cast.''
            In Waddill v. Wise (supra) the same doctrine was 
        elaborately discussed and a further step taken by holding--

            ``That the ability to reach the window and actually tender 
        the ticket to the judges is not essential in all cases to 
        constitute a good offer to vote.''
            Referring to the evidence given in connection with the 
        lists in this record it seems proper to adopt some general 
        principles as a standard for the examination, and the following 
        have been used as suitable and in accord with the precedents 
        quoted:
            First. The evidence should establish that the persons named 
        in the lists as excluded voters were voters according to the 
        requisites of the constitution of South Carolina.
            Second. The proof should show that said persons were 
        present at or near the Congressional voting place of their 
        respective precincts, for the purpose of voting and would have 
        voted but for unlawful rejection or obstruction.
            Third. That said excluded voters would have voted for the 
        contestant.

        Another election contest which involved irregularities in the 
    application of a registration law resulting in the disfranchisement 
    of a number of otherwise qualified voters was Buchanan v. Manning 
    [2 Hinds' Precedents Sec. 972] in the 47th Congress. In this 
    contest the

[[Page 1268]]

    evidence of a disqualification of potential voters was somewhat 
    stronger than in the present case because it appears that the 
    registrars unlawfully refused to register ``many electors.'' In 
    regard to such action by the registrars, its effect on the 
    election, and the efforts which are necessary for a potential voter 
    to undertake in order that his vote may be counted the committee 
    investigating the matter held:

            It appears in the evidence that very many electors in the 
        various counties of this district were deprived of the right of 
        voting because they were not registered. The registry law of 
        Mississippi provides the manner in which registration shall be 
        made. An unlawful refusal on the part of the registration 
        officers to register a qualified elector is a good ground for 
        contest; but in order to make it available the proof should 
        clearly show the name of the elector who offered to register; 
        that he was a duly qualified voter, and the reason why the 
        officer refused to register him, and, under the statutes of the 
        United States, if he offered to perform all that was necessary 
        to be done by him to register, and was refused, and afterwards 
        presented himself at the proper voting place and offered to 
        vote and again offered to perform everything required of him 
        under the law, and his vote was still refused, it would be the 
        duty of the House to see to it that he is not deprived of his 
        right to participate in the choice of his officers. 
        Unfortunately, in this case the proof falls far short of that 
        which is required to enable the House to apply the proper 
        remedy. That there were many instances in which the officers of 
        the registration arbitrarily refused to do their duty is 
        apparent. That many electors were deprived of their right to 
        vote in consequence of this action is also apparent; but in 
        going through the testimony in this case the number thus 
        refused registration and refused the right to vote if added to 
        contestant's vote would not elect him. Neither is it shown 
        sufficiently for whom the nonregistered voters would have voted 
        had they been allowed that right.

        As can be seen from the above mentioned cases the problem 
    involved not so much the registration irregularities themselves 
    but, rather, conceding the irregularities, the amount of and nature 
    of the proof required of the contestant to substantiate his claim 
    of a right to the seat in question. Where the proof offered by the 
    contestant shows how those who were not permitted to vote would 
    have voted and that they tendered a vote and were wrongfully 
    rejected, the House has generally found that this is sufficient to 
    warrant counting the votes as cast. Then if in counting these votes 
    the contestant receives more votes than the contestee he gets the 
    seat. This line of reasoning conforms with the earlier stated 
    standard of preserving and correcting the return if it is at all 
    possible, and with the concept that contestant bears the burden of 
    proof in seeking to have certified returns rejected.
        The House of Representatives has rather consistently been 
    hesitant in declaring a seat vacant preferring rather to measure 
    the wrong and correct the returns, if this is at all possible.
        This preference for protecting the initial returns and 
    correcting them if the evidence shows that they are incorrect is 
    amply illustrated in the contests wherein fraud has been proven, 
    and in contests involving possible rejection of returns. In fact in 
    the index to Hinds and Cannon under Election of Rep

[[Page 1269]]

    resentatives, section 376 is entitled ``Returns, Purging of.--Not 
    To Be Rejected If Corrections May Be Made'' and section 377 is 
    entitled ``Returns, Purging of.--Not To Be Rejected Even for Fraud 
    If Correction May Be Made.'' Under these two headings are three 
    full pages of citations.
        Considering the above precedents along with the statement from 
    the committee report in the election contest of Gormley v. Goss 
    [Sec. 47.9, supra], House Report No. 893, 73d Congress, second 
    session wherein it was held that:

            . . . your committee has been guided by the following 
        postulates deemed established by law and the rules and 
        precedents of the House of Representatives:
            1. The official returns are prima facie evidence of the 
        regularity and correctness of official action.
            2. That election officials are presumed to have performed 
        their duties loyally and honestly.
            3. The burden of coming forward with evidence to meet or 
        resist these presumptions rests with the contestants. It is 
        clear that the contestant in this case has failed to meet these 
        presumptions and requirements.
            The major flaw in the contestant's case is that he fails to 
        carry forward with his claim to the seat as required by the 
        precedents of the House of Representatives and the Federal 
        Contested Election Act. A bare claim to the seat as the 
        contestant makes in his notice of contest without 
        substantiating evidence ignores the impact of this requirement 
        and any contest based on this coupled with a request for the 
        seat to be declared vacant must under the precedents fail. The 
        requirement that the contestant make a claim to the seat is not 
        a hollow one. It is rather the very substance of any contest. 
        Such a requirement carries with it the implication that the 
        contestant will offer proof of such nature that the House of 
        Representatives acting on his allegations alone could seat the 
        contestant.
            That the contestant in the present case fails to do this is 
        quite clear. If all of his allegations were found to be correct 
        he would still not be entitled to the seat. It is perhaps 
        stating the obvious but a contest for a seat in the House of 
        Representatives is a matter of most serious import and not 
        something to be undertaken lightly. It involves the possibility 
        of rejecting the certified returns of a state and calling into 
        doubt the entire electoral process. Thus the burden of proof 
        placed on the contestant is necessarily substantial.
            In this case the contestant has not met this burden of 
        proof. He makes no substantial offer to show any of the 
        following elements, much less all of them which are necessary 
        to his case: (1) that those whose names were stricken from the 
        registration list were, at the time of the election, qualified 
        resident voters of the 38th Congressional District of 
        California; (2) that those whose names were so stricken offered 
        to vote; and (3) that a sufficient number to change the result 
        offered to vote and were denied by election officials because 
        their names had been stricken from the registration lists would 
        have voted for the contestant had they not been so denied. Had 
        all of the criteria been met then it would have been incumbent 
        upon the committee to pass, in the first instance, on the 
        actions of the registrars in Riverside County and then on the 
        validity of the evidence offered, but such is not the ease 
        here.
            The type of relief that the contestant seeks is not a 
        proper one. The contestant is limited, as was noted above, to 
        claiming the seat in question and offering proof to 
        substantiate that claim. Declaring a vacancy in the seat is one 
        of the options

[[Page 1270]]

        available to the House of Representatives and is generally 
        exercised when the House decides that the contestant, while he 
        has failed to justify his claim to the seat, has succeeded in 
        so impeaching the returns that the House believes that the only 
        alternative available to determine the will of the electorate 
        is to hold a new election.
            The committee also takes note of the time factor involved 
        in the contest. It appears from the record available to the 
        committee that the contestant had, at the very minimum, three 
        months notice in advance of the election of the actions here 
        protested of the registrars. It would seem that if the 
        contestant had any reservations about such actions the proper 
        forum in which to test such reservations would have been the 
        California courts. In election matters the courts have 
        generally been inclined to expedite the case and we feel 
        certain that such would have been the case in California had 
        the contestant chosen to so act. From the record it appears 
        rather that the contestant decided to take his chances and we 
        feel constrained to abide by that decision.

    On Nov. 9, 1971, Mr. Abbitt, by direction of the Committee on House 
Administration, called up House Resolution 507 (accompanying H. Rept. 
No. 92-626) which provided:

                                  H. Res. 507

        Resolved, That the election contest of David A. Tunno, 
    contestant, against Victor V. Veysey, contestee, Thirty-eighth 
    Congressional District of the State of California, be dismissed.

    The resolution dismissing the contest was agreed to by the House 
and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.(11)
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11. 117 Cong. Rec. 40017, 92d Cong. 1st Sess.
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    Note: Syllabi for Tunno v Veysey may be found herein at Sec. 35.7 
(burden of showing results of election would be changed); Sec. 35.8 
(burden of establishing claim to seat); Sec. 42.11 (disposal by 
resolution declaring seat vacant).
                      ELECTION CONTESTS--APPENDIX


                         DESCHLER'S PRECEDENTS

[[Page 1271]]




                         APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 9

    Note.--Chapter 9 discusses contested election cases in the House of 
Representatives beginning with the year 1931. This appendix to Chapter 
9 contains a digest of contested election cases for the years 1917 
through 1931 (the 65th through the 71st Congresses), arranged by 
Congress and case name. It was thought necessary to include this 
material in an appendix to provide a more comprehensive coverage than 
now exists of election cases for the years cited.
    Contested election cases from the first 64 Congresses have been 
presented in other works. In 1901, Mr. Chester H. Rowell completed 
preparation of a digest of all contested election cases in the House of 
Representatives from the 1st through the 56th Congresses. Mr. Rowell's 
intention was to summarize earlier compilations of such cases. As he 
stated in a preface to his work:

    Most of the reports in the first fifty-two Congresses are included 
in the nine volumes known from the name of their compilers as: (1) 
Clarke and Hall (First to Twenty-third Congress), (2) 1 Bartlett 
(Twenty-fourth to Thirty-eighth Congress), (3) 2 Bartlett (Thirty-ninth 
to Forty-first Congress), (4) Smith (Forty-second to Forty-fourth 
Congress), (5) 1 Ellsworth (Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses), 
(6) 2 Ellsworth (Forty-seventh Congress), (7) Mobley (Forty-eighth to 
Fiftieth Congress), (8) Rowell (Fifty-first Congress), and (9) Stofer 
(Fifty-second Congress).
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Commentary and editing by Assistant Parliamentarian Charles W. Johnson.
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    The volumes referred to, he noted, were largely unedited and in 
some degree incomplete. To correct these deficiencies, Mr. Rowell 
compiled his one-volume digest, the first half of which contained 
condensations of case reports arranged chronologically by Congress, 
with headnotes and a summary of actions taken by the House. The second 
part of Mr. Rowell's work consisted of a digest of the law and 
precedents established by the cases.
    In 1919, Mr. Merrill Moores continued the presentation of contested 
election cases by compiling a digest of such cases in the House arising 
from the 57th through the 64th Congresses (1901-1917). (See H. Doc. No. 
2052, 64th Cong.)
    It is hoped that Chapter 9 and this appendix thereto, together with 
the above-mentioned works, will provide a sufficiently comprehensive 
treatment of all precedents arising from contested election cases.


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