that she had no legal right to vote; without knowing that the law had
made the act of knowingly voting without a right, a crime. In that case
she would have done the act which the law made a crime, and could not
have shielded herself from the penalty by pleading ignorance of the law.
But in the present case the defendant has not done the act which the law
pronounces a crime. The law has not made the act of voting without a
lawful right to vote, a crime, where it is done by mistake, and in the
belief by the party voting that he has the lawful right to vote. The
crime consists in voting "knowingly," without lawful right. Unless the
knowledge exists in fact, is the very gist of the offence is wanting. To
hold that the law presumes conclusively that such knowledge exists in
all cases where the legal right is wanting, and to reject all evidence
to the contrary, or to deny to such evidence any effect, as has been
done on this trial, is to strike the word "knowingly" out of the
statute--and to condemn the defendant on the legal fiction that she was
acting in bad faith, it being all the while conceded that she was in
fact acting in good faith. I admit that there are precedents to sustain
such ruling, but they cannot be reconciled with the fundamental
principles of criminal law, nor with the most ordinary rules of justice.
Such a ruling cannot but shock the moral sense of all right-minded,
unprejudiced men.

No doubt the assumption by the defendant of a belief of her right to
vote might be made use of by her as a mere cover to secure the privilege
of giving a known illegal vote, and of course that false assumption
would constitute no defence to the charge of illegal voting. If the
defendant had dressed herself in male attire, and had voted as John
Anthony, instead of Susan, she would not be able to protect herself
against a charge of voting with a knowledge that she had no right to
vote, by asserting her belief that she had a right to vote as a woman.