New York was still struggling with Tweed. He had just boasted that so long as he did the counting he did not care who did the voting. There had been issued in the city of New York alone 64.000 fraudulent naturalization papers. all but about 3.500 purporting to be issued in October. These papers. large numbers of them being in blank. were scattered broadcast over New York and the neighboring States. Not only fraudulent naturalization. but repeating. false personation. ballotboxstuffing. false counting. and other kindred crimes upon the suffrage prevailed to such a degree that the return of the vote in that city bore no more relation to an honest vote than to the calculation of an eclipse. The act of 1870 provided for a suppression of these evils so far as related to the election of members of Congress by stationing at the polls officers of the United States to be appointed by the circuit courts. who should witness and scrutinize the elections. It needed but two petitioners to set the act in motion in cities or towns of 20.0001 inhabitants. and but ten elsewhere.
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naturalization