Ex Parte Siebold

The story begins with five election judges: Albert Siebold, Walter Tucker, Martin C. Burns, Lewis Coleman, and Henry Bowers. Each was responsible for overseeing the voting at one of the precincts in the city of Baltimore on 5 November 1878, for the election to choose the members of the Forty-sixth Congress.

On election day, each of the five judges was engaged in some form of election fraud. Henry Bowers was convicted of hindering an election supervisor from inspecting the ballot box at his precinct. Walter Tucker, along with a man named Justus J. Gude (who was not involved in the later Supreme Court case), was convicted of preventing Deputy Marshall James N. Schofield from supervising the election at his precinct, as well as " . . . fraudulently and clandestinely putting and placing in the ballot-box of the said precinct twenty (and more) ballots . . . with intent to thereby affect said election." As the Court decision emphasized, "This charge . . . is for the offence commonly known as `stuffing the ballot-box.'"

Martin C. Burns was convicted of:

refusing to allow the supervisor or elections to inspect the ballot-box, or even to enter the room where the polls were held, and with violently resisting the deputy marshal who attempted to arrest him . . .

Lewis Coleman was found guilty of the same charges as Burns, plus an additional charge of ballot-box stuffing. Siebold was convicted of the serious charge of stuffing the ballot-box.