Case ID: pa_268/html/0303-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ransley’s Contested Election.
    
      Election law — Congressman—Nominations—Primary election— Jurisdiciion — Quarter sessions.
    
    The court of quarter sessions has no jurisdiction to entertain a petition to contest the nomination of a candidate for Congress at a primary election.
    Argued September 27, 1920.
    Appeal, No. 119, J an. T., 1921, by Henry J. Trainer and John E. McLean, Jr., et al., from order of Q. S. Phila. Co., June T., 1920, quashing proceedings in the matter of the nomination of Harry C. Eansley.
    Before Brown, C. J., Stewart, Moschzisker, Frazer, Walling and Simpson, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Petition to contest the nomination, at a primary election, of a candidate for Congress.
    The petition on behalf of Charles Delaney alleged fraud at a primary election for the nomination of a candidate for Congress in the Third Congressional District of Pennsylvania, held on May 18, 1920. The petition prayed that certain ballot boxes be opened, the ballots counted according to law, and a true return be made thereof. Harry C. Eansley, the candidate returned as nominated, moved that the proceedings he quashed, on the ground that the quarter sessions had no jurisdiction to entertain the petition. The court, in opinions by Patterson, J., and Shoemaker, J., in which opinions Bregy, P. J,, concurred, held there was nothing in the Acts of May 19,1874, P. L. 208; July 12,1913, P. L. 719, or July 9, 1919, P. L. 839, which gave the quarter sessions jurisdiction over such a contest, and they accordingly entered an order quashing the proceedings. See 29 Pa. Dist. R. 626.
    
      December 31, 1920:
    The petitioners appealed.
    
      Error assigned was the order of the court.
    
      Allen S. Morgan, for appellants.
    The right to contest in the present case is secured by the primary election laws under which nominees seek to secure a place upon the ballot at general elections, under a party name.
    The primary election laws giving the right to contest are complete in themselves and reference is made to the Act of 1874, only for a method of procedure: James Smith Woolen M. Co. v. Browne, 206 Pa. 543.
    
      William A. Carr, with him Leopold C. Class and J. Lee Patton, for appellee.
    The quarter sessions was without jurisdiction to entertain a contest relating to the nomination or election of a representative in Congress : Wilson v. Blaine, 262 Pa. 367; Coopersdale Election, 157 Pa. 637; Com. ex rel. v. Emminger, 74 Pa. 479; Hulseman v. Rems, 41 Pa. 396.
   Per Curiam,

The proceeding instituted in the court below was to contest the nomination of Harry C. Ransley as the Republican candidate for. Congress at a primary election held in the Third Congressional District of Pennsylvania on May 18, 1920. No statute authorizes such a contest in the court below, and it was, therefore, without jurisdiction to entertain appellants’ petition.

The order quashing it for want of jurisdiction is affirmed at their costs.