Failure has attended the few attempts which have been made to strike down other alleged discriminations in election laws or in their administration. Nearly fifty years ago the Court rejected a claim that an act forbidding the registration of a voter until one year after his intent to become a legal voter shall have been recorded was a denial of equal protection.[1181] In Snowden v. Hughes,[1182] it held that an alleged erroneous refusal of a State Primary Canvassing Board to certify a person as a successful candidate in a party primary was not, in the absence of a showing of purposeful discrimination, a denial of a constitutional right which would justify a suit for damages against members of the Board. Three recent attacks on inequalities in the effective voting power of persons residing in different geographical areas were likewise unsuccessful. The Court refused, in Colegrove v. Green,[1183] to interfere to prevent the election of Representatives in Congress by districts in Illinois, because of unequal apportionment. Two years later, in MacDougall v. Green[1184] it held that a State law requiring candidates of a new political party to obtain a minimum number of signatures on their nominating petitions in each of 50 counties did not withhold equal justice from the overwhelming majority of the voters who resided in the 49 most populous counties. Over the dissent of Justices Black and Douglas it affirmed the action of a federal district court in dismissing a complaint challenging the validity of Georgia's county unit election system, under which the votes of residents of the most populous county have on the average but one-tenth the weight of those in other counties.[1185]
PROCEDURE
General Doctrine
The equal protection clause does not exact uniformity of procedure. State legislatures may classify litigation and adopt one type of procedure for one class and a different type for another. The procedure followed in condemnation suits brought by a State need not be the same as in a suit started by a private corporation.[1186] Procedural rules may vary in different geographic subdivisions of the State; the State may be given a larger number of peremptory challenges to jurors in capital cases in cities having more than 100,000 inhabitants than in other areas.[1187] A State may require that disputes on the amount of loss under fire insurance policies be submitted to arbitration.[1188] It may prescribe the evidence which shall be received and the effect which shall be given it; proof of one fact, or of several facts taken collectively, may be made prima facie evidence of another fact, so long as it is not a mere arbitrary mandate and does not discriminate invidiously between different persons in substantially the same situations.[1189] A plaintiff in a stockholder's derivative suit may be required to give security if he does not own a specified amount of stock; the size of his financial interest may reasonably be considered as some measure of his good faith and responsibility in bringing the suit.[1190]
Access to Courts
The legislature may provide for diversity in the jurisdiction of its several courts, both as to subject matter and finality of decision, if all persons within the territorial limits of the respective jurisdiction have an equal right in like cases to resort to them for redress.[1191] There is no denial of equal protection of the law by reason of the fact that in one district the State is allowed an appeal and in another district it is not.[1192] The legislative discretion to grant or withhold equitable relief in any class of cases must, under the equal protection clause, be so exercised as not to grant equitable relief to one, and to deny it to another under like circumstances and in the same territorial jurisdiction. A State law forbidding injunctions in labor disputes is invalid where injunctive relief is available in other similar controversies.[1193] The action of prison officials in suppressing a prisoner's appeal documents during the statutory period for appeal constitutes a denial of equal protection by refusing him privileges of appeal that were available to others.[1194]
Corporations
A statute permitting suits against domestic corporations to be brought in any county in which the cause of action arose, is not void as denying equal protection.[1195] Neither is a statute applicable only to corporations requiring the production of books and papers upon notice, with punishment for contempt upon neglect or refusal to comply.[1196] Where, however, actions against domestic corporations may be brought only in counties where they may have places of business or where a chief officer resides, a statute authorizing action against a foreign corporation in any county is discriminatory and invalid.[1197] So also is a statute, applicable only to foreign corporations, which requires the corporation, as a condition precedent to maintenance of an action, to send its officer into the State, with papers and books bearing on the matter in controversy, for examination before trial, where nonresident individuals, as well as individuals and corporations within the State, were subject to less onerous requirements.[1198]
Expenses of Litigation
A statute which directs that life and health insurance companies who default in payments of their policies shall pay 12 per cent damages, together with reasonable attorney's fees, does not deny the equal protection of the law in failing to impose the same conditions on fire, marine, and inland insurance companies, and on mutual benefit and relief associations.[1199] Costs may be allowed to a person who has been subjected to malicious prosecution, with provision for commitment of the prosecutor until paid.[1200] Statutes providing for recovery of reasonable attorney's fees in action on small claims against all classes of defendants, individual and corporate,[1201] in mandamus proceedings,[1202] or in actions against railroads for damages caused by fires[1203] have been upheld. But a statute, applicable only to railway corporations, providing for recovery of attorney's fees and costs in actions for certain small claims was found to be repugnant to the equal protection clause.[1204]