Alpena argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1893-1909, 1894-11-21
Marking Ballots.

Marking Ballots
The meaning of the election law,
regarding the making of ballots,
has had many constructions put up
on it as to the legality of the mark
ing, and the Supreme Court last
week settled the matter as follows:
"We held in our former opinion
that the section of the act Of 1891,
providing that ballots bearing dis
tinguished marks should not be
counted, should be construed to ex-
clude all ballots which bear marks
not appropriate and necessary to ex-
press the voters intention. 1t is
now said that the Interpretation
placed upon the decision is such as
to exclude a large number of ballots
cast at the recent election upon
which there appears an erasure of
the name of the candidate on one
party ticket and cross before the
name of an opposing candidate.
No such question is involved in the
present case, as the case arose I'M
der the act Of 1891, which provides
for striking off the name on the
party ticket as well as the making
of the cross in the square before
the name of the opposing candidate.
The ballots under consideration are
ballots in which the name erased
was one appearing on the opposing
ballot. But an examination of the
opinion leads us to think that some
of the language employed may have
been misleading and, as the public
are naturally deeply interested in
the subject matter, we think it prop
er to state that it was not in the
mind of the court that ballots hav-
ing a name erased under the party
ticket and the name Of an opposing
candidate marked by cross should
not be counted, but that in our
opinion such tickets are not legally
Objectionable and should be count
ed.
"Act No. 2O2 of the Public Acts
of 1893, it is true, provides that
when only one candidate is to be
elected to an Office, and the elector
desires to vote for a candidate not
on his party ticket, he should make
a cross IN the circle under the name
of his party, and also make cross
in the square before the name Of
the candidate for whom he wished
to vote OH the other ticket; and in
such case, 1T should not be neces-
sary to strike off the name of the
candidate on the party ticket but
section seventeen of the act requires
that the booths shall be provided
with erasers, and section twenty-six
clearly implies that such erasers
may be used to erase the name of
the candidate on the party ticket,
for it is provided: "A ticket mark
ed with cross in the circle under
the party name will be deemed a
vote for each of the candidates
named in each party column whose
name is not erased, except those
candidates where a cross is placed
in the square before the name of
some opposing candidate
1.-THE erasure of the name is rec
ognized as appropriate to express the
voters intent not to vote for such
candidate; and we do not think that
when such an erasure is made on
the party ticket and the voter in ad-
dition places cross before the
name of the opposing candidate
either mark should constitute dis
tinguishing mark. Taken as a
whole, we think it was intended by
the act of 1893 that such an erasure
should be treated as permissible,
though not necessary.
"The motion for rehearing pre-
sents other questions, the gravity of
which induces us to grant re-
hearing of the whole case"