BRIEF MEMORANDUM ON PRESENTATION OF PETITION CHALLENGING JUNE 5, 1962
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY FOR CONGRESS, SFCOWT) CONGRESSIONAL niSTRTCT OF
MISSISSIPPI, AND ALSO CHALLENGING TH*- PRIMARY ELECTION ON ACCOUNT OF
FRAUD.
The following are alternative ways of proceeding, bearing in mind
that there will he a petition with over sixty thousand (60,000) signatures of Negro  citizens over the age of twenty-one vears and residents
of the second congressional district of the State of Mississippi, This
petition will state that these Negro citizens would have voted for
Merrill Lindsey had not their right to vote been denied and abridged.
This number of signatures is in excess of  the total number of votes
cast for all three candidates in the primary. It is also known that
the Mississippi legislature, immediately prior to the primary, repealed
the law giving the candidate the right to appoint a fraction of the
election officials. This was done after Reverend Lindsey had served
notice of his intention to exercise these rights. In Coahoma County,
Mississippi, Negro representatives of Reverend Lindsey were barred
from  watching the counting of the ballots, contrary to the state election
law. Fear and intimidation of Negroes generally prevails throughout
the district, except for one or two of the twenty-two counties. The
State's discriminatory registration, voting and election laws are
almost totally effective against possible Negro voting,
1.   The petition «an be presented to the President of the United
States requesting that he act under Section 2 of the Fourteenth
Amendment, which re^ds as follows:
"Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the
several States according to their respective numbers, counting
the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the
choice of electors for "President and Vice-President of the
United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and
Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature
thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State,
being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of  the TTnited States,
or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion,
or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall
be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male
citizens shall bear to the whole number of male eitizens
twenty-one years of age in such State."
This may also be done un^er Section 6 of Title 2, U.S.C., which reads
as follows:
"Sec, 6, Reduction of Representation. Should any State deny
or abridge the right of any of the male inhabitants thereof,
being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United
States, to vote at any election named in the amendment to
the Constitution, ariiclo 14, section 2, except for participation in the rebellion or othev crime, the number of