Some cases of intimidation of Negroes at the polls reached the courts of record. In Lawrence County, Ohio, in 1870, for instance, two white men by threats of violence kept three Negroes from voting. One of the white men was convicted in the Federal court[698] under the Act of 1870, and imprisoned six months; the other was acquitted because he had not been heard to use threatening language. In 1871 a white man in South Carolina was convicted in the Federal court[699] for conspiring to keep a Negro from voting at a congressional election. The same year, in a contested election for mayor of Leavenworth, Kansas, the defeated candidate claimed that he would have been elected had not a number of Negroes been improperly kept from voting. He did not show that they had been in the ward thirty days as required by the election law of the State, and the court[700] held that Negroes must satisfy the same requirements as to residence as other voters. In a State election in Louisiana, in 1872, it was claimed, upon the affidavits of four thousand voters, that the votes of ten thousand Negroes had been suppressed because of their race and color.[701] A tax collector in Delaware, in 1873, refused or failed to collect taxes from Negroes when the payment of taxes was a prerequisite to voting. The Federal court[702] held that it had jurisdiction because the tax collector was a State officer and, thus, it was the State denying and abridging the right to vote on account of race. Over one hundred men were indicted in the Federal court of Louisiana in 1874 for intimidating Negroes at the polls.[703] The same year the judges of the municipal election of Petersburg, Virginia, were indicted for refusing to allow a number of Negroes to vote.[704] In 1878, a Negro in Illinois who was denied the right to vote at a school election sued and recovered a hundred dollars damages.[705] In Georgia, in 1844, several white men were convicted in the circuit court of the United States for intimidating, beating, and maltreating Negroes to keep them from voting. The Supreme Court[706] held that Congress had power to regulate Federal elections and could prevent such intimidation.