Case ID: pa_251/html/0110-01.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

Braddock Borough Election Case.
    
      Elections — Primary elections — Fraud—Petition for recount— Act of July 12; 1918; P. L. 719; Section 15.
    
    The “five qualified electors” who are authorized by Section 15 of the Act of July 12,1913, P. L. 719, relating to primary elections, to present a sworn petition averring fraud or error in the computation of a vote and asking for a recount of the votes, need not he electors of tbe precinct, division or district in which tbe alleged fraud or error was committed.
    Argued Oct. 21, 1915.
    October 21, 1915:
    Appeals, Nos. 19 and 20, Oct. T., 1916, by David B. Johns, from orders of O. P. Allegheny Co., Oct. T., 1915, Nos. 1794 and 1821, ordering a recount of ballots, In re Recount of Ballots in the First Ward of the Borough of Braddock and In re Recount of votes in the Seventh District of the Second Ward of the City of Pittsburgh.
    Before Brown, C. J., Mestrezat, Potter, Stewart and' Mosohzisker, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Petitions for the opening of ballot-boxes. Before Shafer, P. J., and Evans, J.
    The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts;
    The court ordered the ballot-boxes to be opened and the votes to be recounted. David B. Johns appealed.
    
      Error assigned was the order of the court.
    
      Walter Lyon and Richard W. Martin, with them Thomas Patterson, Clarence Burleigh, Elliott Rodgers, John S. Weller and Harry Diamond, for appellant.
    
      George E. Alter, with him J. D. Douglass and George Weil, for appellee.
   Per Curiam,

We concur in the view of the learned president judge of the court below and one of his associates that Section 15 of the Act of July 12, 1918, P. L. 719, “ought to be interpreted to further its general purpose, which is to preserve the purity of the ballot.” It was properly so interpreted by the court below in refusing to hold that the five qualified electors, authorized by the act to present a sworn petition averring fraud or error and asking for a recount of the votes, must be electors of the precinct, division or district in which, the alleged fraud or error was committed. As no error appears in the records brought up by these writs of certiorari, the orders appealed from are affirmed at appellant’s costs.

Decree affirmed.