investigate a Section 241 violation involving the contested primary election of a state official). 6 The mail and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 & 1343, have sometimes been proposed as an alternative means to reach local election fraud, under the theory that such schemes defrauded citizens of their right to fair and honest elections. However, such a m a i l o r w i r e fraud theory is not viable in light of Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358 (2010) (honest services mail or wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1346 limited to offenses in the nature of bribery or kickbacks). Finally, over the past forty years, Congress has enacted new criminal laws with broad jurisdictional bases to combat false voter registrations, vote-buying, multiple-voting, and fraudulent voting in elections in which a federal candidate is on the ballot. 52 U.S.C. §§ 10307(c), 10307(e), 20511. These statutes rest on Congress’s power to regulate federal elections (U.S. CONST. art. I, § 4) and on its power under the Necessary and Proper Clause (U.S. C ONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 18) to enact laws to protect the federal election process from potential corruption. The federal jurisdictional predicate underlying these statutes is satisfied as long as either the name of a federal candidate is on the ballot, or the fraud involves corruption of the voter registration process in a state where one registers to vote simultaneously for federal as well as other offices. Slone, 411 F.3d at 647–48; United States v. McCranie, 169 F.3d 723, 727 (11th Cir. 1999). As indicated in the cited cases, Section 241 has been used to prosecute election fraud that affects the vote for federal officials, as well as vote fraud directed at non-federal candidates that involves the corruption of public officials – most often election officers – acting under color of law, i.e., ballot-box stuffing schemes. This latter type of scheme will be referred to in this book as a “public scheme.” A scheme that does not involve the necessary participation of corrupt officials acting under color of law, but that affects the tabulation of votes for federal candidates, will be referred to as a “private scheme.” 6 21