Case ID: nys_66/html/0197-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WHITE, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(32 Misc. Rep. 131.)
    PEOPLE ex rel. WOOD v. BOARD OF TOWN CANVASSERS, ETC., OF TOWN OF RANDOLPH.
    (Supreme Court, Special Term, Chautauqua County.
    July, 1900.)
    Town Meeting—Defective Vote—Special Meeting—Resubmission op Question—Effect.
    Where the votes on certain questions submitted at a regular town meeting were void for irregularities, and a special meeting was called, at which the questions were resubmitted, and the vote conducted regularly, no effect should be given to the irregular votes cast at the first meeting, nor to the result of such meeting, since the second meeting remedied the defects, and hence mandamus would not lie to compel the rejection of the irregular votes.
    Mandamus by the people, on the relation of Oscar C. Wood, against the board of town canvassers, etc., of the town of Randolph, to compel the rejection of all ballots cast at the town meeting.
    Writ denied.
    Wentworth & Wentworth and Herman M. Allen, for relator.
    Benjamin F. Congdon, for respondents.
   WHITE, J.

The moving papers and the affidavits filed on behalf of the respondents show that the electors of the town of Randolph voted upon the local option questions provided for by the liquor tax law at the biennial town meeting in 1899; that those questions were not, at that meeting, submitted to or voted upon by said electors in the manner prescribed by law, and the result thereof may be assumed to have been void. Because of the recognized irregularities in the first submission of the questions, a special town meeting was duly called, and held on May 1, 1900, at which said questions were regularly submitted and voted upon, and the result thereof declared according to law. It seems clear to me. that, the electors having remedied such irregularities in the maner prescribed by the statute, no effect is to be given to the irregular votes at the regular meeting in 1899, nor to the result of that meeting as declared, and for that reason the motion for the writ of mandamus should be denied, with $10 costs to the respondents.

Motion denied, with $10 costs to respondents.