62 STAT.] SOTH CONG. , 2D SESS.-CH. 644-JUNE 25, 1948 the President of the Senate or, if he be absent from the seat of govern- ment, the Secretary of State shall send a special messenger to the district judge in whose custody one certificate of votes from that State has been lodged, and such judge shall forthwith transmit that list by the hand of such messenger to the seat of government. FORFEITURE FOR MESSENGER'S NEGLECT OF DUTY §14. Every person who, having been appointed, pursuant to sec- tion 13 of this title. to deliver the certificates of the votes of the electors to the President of the Senate, and having accepted such appointment, shall neglect to perform the services required from him, shall forfeit the sum of $1,000. COUNTING ELECTORAL VOTES IN CONGRESS §15. Congress shall be in session on the sixth day of January suc- ceeding every meeting of the electors. The Senate and House of Rep- resentatives shall meet in the Hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of 1 o'clock in the afternoon on that day, and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer. Two tellers shall be pre- viously appointed on the part of the Senate and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alpha- betical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and said tell- ers, having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two Houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted according to the rules in this subchapter provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall there- upon announce the state of the vote, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected Presi- dent and Vice President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the Journals of the two Houses. Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made objections. in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argu- ment, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such obections to the House of Representa- tives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from Ante, p. 673 . which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to Ante p -673. have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been ap- pointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the
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