Case ID: ny-st-rep_34/html/0634-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Landon, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the Matter of the Application of Duncan McLaren et al., to compel the County Clerk of Albany County to correct omission in ballots.
    
      (Supreme Court, Chambers, Schenectady County,
    
    
      Filed Oct. 25, 1890.)
    
    Election—Ballots.
    Where the charter of a village provides that its-police commissioners shall be elected at the general election, the names of the persons nominated for these offices must be placed on the official ballot prepared for the districts included in such village.
    
      I
    
    Motion to compel correct omission in ballots.
    
      Frank S. Black, for motion; Mark Cohen, opposed.
   Landon, J.

The question presented by this application is whether at the general election to be held in ¡November thenames of the candidates for the office of Police Commissioners for the village of West Troy should be upon the same ballot with the names of the candidates for state, county and district offices, or upon a separate ballot.

. The first thirty-seven sections of the ballot reform law, chap. 262, Laws 1890, prescribe and provide for a system of voting by ballot at general elections, among the main features of which are, systematic nominations; official ballots, prepared, printed and distributed under the direction of .the county clerk; one ballot only to be cast by one voter; and only one ballot box in which to deposit all the votes cast.

The thirty-eighth section of the same act provides that “ The provisions of this act shall apply to town and village elections except in the following particulars.” Then follow numerous particulars in which the scheme provided in the thirty-seven previous sections of the act is reduced, modified and narrowed in its proportions and methods so as to be fitted to the smaller range of town and village elections. These excepted particulars do not apply to general elections.

We thus in the same act find two systems, one for general elections, and another for town and village elections.

Whether the npminations and the official ballots are embraced in the one system or the other does not depend upon the nature of the office to be filled, but upon the election at which it is to be filled. Of course, a governor cannot be chosen at a town or villoge election, but police commissioners may be chosen at a, general election if the statute so prescribe. The statute does so prescribe with reference to the commissioners of police for the village of West Troy. Chap. 496, Laws 1870. It follows, therefore, that the nominations of candidates for this office must be made and filed in accordance with the methods prescribed for general elections, and that the county clerk must place the duly nominated candidates for these offices upon the official ballots which he prepares for the districts of West Troy.

This construction makes the scheme of ballot reform law, so far as any question here presented enables us to judge, harmonious and complete. To hold that two elections, one the general election and the other a village election, must be carried on at the same time under two different methods, would introduce confusion and the evils which the act was designed to remove. The act must be so construed as to accomplish its purpose.

It follows that the motion must be granted.