Case ID: ark_186/html/0413-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "McIIaNey, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Bennett v. Miller.
    4-2711
    Opinion delivered October 31, 1932.
    
      Lamb .& Adams, for appellant.
   McIIaNey, J.

At the annual school election in Tru-mann Consolidated School District No. '2, Poinsett County, Arkansas, held Maj{ 16, 1931, no person qualified as a candidate for school director, and no names appeared on the ballot sent out ifor use in the election by the board of education. Tlife ballots sent out to :i^e used in the election were provided with blank spaces ior the insertion of the names cóf the persons fir whoun an elector wished to vote for directors. Appellants anid ap-pellees were candidates at'\ said election for directors. Appellants prepared or cauised to be prepared sticfkers or pasters with their names ^printed thereon which ithey caused to.be distributed to voders at the polls on election day and 700 of the electors f took said stickers, pastees] them on the official ballot and úbnrnby voted for the ap- ' pellants. Appellants received a majority of the votes polled at the election, their vote ranging from 614 for McMahan to 757 for Sullens; whereas the votes for ap-pellees ranged from 81 for Smith to 326 for Miller. The judges of election certified that appellants had therefore been elected. Thereafter appellees filed a petition with the county board of education as provided by § 30 of act 169 of 1931, seeking to have thrown out all ballots on which stickers appeared as illegal, and that the county board recount the legal ballots and the result declared by the county board. The county board, on its own motion, dismissed the petition! for contest, and the appel-lees appealed to the circuit; court. There the case was tried on a stipulation substantially as above set out, where the cause was dismissed as to appellees Miller, Watkins and Smith on thejir motion. The court held that all ballots on which stickers were pasted were void, should not be counted, and, [after casting them out ap-pellees Pennington, Houston and Clark were elected.

There is no allegation of fraud in this election. The electors were neither misled oír coerced into.voting for any particular candidates. On the contrary they freely expressed their choice of candidates. Mr. Miller, originally a contestant, was one of the judges of election. He made no complaint as to the. form of ballot or that stickers were used by some of tho electors in voting. We think it makes no difference hov^ the electors placed the names of the persons they desiired to vote for on the ballots, in the absence of frauck'. They might have been writte^i with pen and ink, ■ pencil, typewritten, or by sticker's and the result would £ be the same, as in either case t.t expressed the wish of the individual elector. We find -ho directions in the statutes regulating school elections prescribing exactly hdw the elector shall put on the [ballot the lame of the [person for whom he wishes to jTOte. Sectioi 3803, Crawford & Moses’ Digest, relating to elections generally, -.provides that the elector shall /scratch off the nimes of fill candidates except those for whom he wishes to vt/ce, “and write the name of any person for whom he may wish to vote whose name is not printed * * é on the ballot at all.” We do not think the word “write” is there used in a technical sense, but that such name might be placed on the ballot in any convenient way, such as the use of a rubber stamp or a sticker as was done in this case. As said by this court in Ashby v. Patrick, 181 Ark. 859, 28 S. W. (2d) 55: “If the ballot voted on was such as not to mislead the electors but to give them an opportunity to express their will, it was sufficient.” So here the ballot did not have the names of any persons who were candidates for directors. It was left to the electors to vote for whom they pleased by “writing” their names on the ballots. If they chose 'to use stickers with the names of the persons they desired to vote for printed thereon we can see no valid objection thereto, and there is no provision of statute violated. ■

The judgment will he reversed, and the contest dismissed. It is so ordered,