In United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 61 S.Ct. 1031, 85 L.Ed. 1368 (1941), Louisiana election officials charged with willfully altering and falsely counting and certifying the ballots of voters cast in a primary election for a Representative to Congress were indicted under a federal criminal statute making it a crime to interfere with or deprive any citizen of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution. The defendants argued that the right to vote in a primary was not a right secured by the Constitution. The Court assumed that in adopting Article I, 2, which provides that members of the House of Representatives shall be "chosen ... by the People," U.S. Const. Art. I, 2, cl. 1, the framers of the Constitution did not have specifically in mind selection by a direct primary. Nonetheless, it rejected the defendants' argument, holding instead that the right to have one's "vote counted in both the general election and in the primary election, where the latter is a part of the election machinery," is a right protected by the Constitution. 313 U.S. at 322, 61 S.Ct. at 1041. Nothing in Classic suggests that the Constitution requires the holding of primaries in the election of representatives. Instead, the Court emphasized that the Constitution gave the states "wide discretion in the formulation of a system" for electing representatives. Id. at 311, 61 S.Ct. at 1035. The language of the opinion makes it clear that it was holding merely that if primaries are a part of the selection process they cannot be conducted in a manner inconsistent with the popular election mandate of the Constitution: Where the state law has made the primary an integral part of the procedure of choice, or where in fact the primary effectively controls the choice, the right of the elector to have his ballot counted at the primary is likewise included in the right protected by Article I, 2. Id. at 319, 61 S.Ct. at 1039. In United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 61 S.Ct. 1031, 85 L.Ed. 1368 (1941), the second count of the indictment charged the Commissioners of Election with a deprivation of constitutionally protected rights "by the willful failure and refusal of defendants to count the votes as cast. . . ." 313 U.S. at 309, 61 S.Ct. at 1034. Although the court did not pass on the sufficiency of the indictments because the appeal was a direct one following the district court's sustaining a demurrer, it is clear that plaintiffs' theory is not novel.