The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-22
CALIFORNIA GOES
 FOR DEMOCRATS Court Decision Will Reverse
 Roosevelt Plurality ANOTHER CANVASS
Method of Counting Vote in Los Angeles County Held to Be Inc0r- rect-AIl Democratic COnten-
 tions Upheld But One

Los Angeles, November 21.-A decision of the appellate court handed down to- day, apparently insures a majority for Woodrow Wilson in California of about 15O votes and nearly all, if not all, of the electors sent by the state to the electoral college.
 For a time tonight it was believed that the decision had the effect of throwing out of the official count the entire vote Of Los Angeles county, which gave Roose- welt more than 20,00O plurality, but ad- vices from the office of the secretary of state at Sacramento proved this fear unfounded.
 The court order decides especially that in one precinct in Pasadena and one in Los Angeles, only the votes for A. J. Wallace. head eleetor on the progressive ticket may be omitted, because in check ing all the other electors in those pre- cincts, the election boards kept no tally of the votes cast, merely certifying the totals. This the court held to be an CT TOT. invalidating those votes.
 The two precincts together gave Roose- welt majority of about 200 votes. As with this number included the majority in the state for Wallace, the highest Roose- welt elector, stood 40 tonight, 1t seemed inevitable that with the exception of Wallace, the Roosevelt electors in the state must be defeated.
 peremptory writ of mandamus was ordered issued directing the board of supervisors to canvass the election re- turns fin accordance with the conclusions set forth in the opinion.
 Democrats Upheld
 The opinions sustained the democrats in all except one point. It was an im- portant point, inasmuch as a decision in favor of the democratic contention would have assured the election of the entire thirteen Wilson electors in the state. This involved the returns of thirty five precincts which the democrats pe- titioned to be rejected entirely because the sealed envelopes had been opened so that corrections in the certifcation could be made by election boards.
 The court held that the breaking of the sealed envelopes prior to the time for opening them in public was contrary to law, .'but did not constitute such an irregularity as to require that the re- turns be entirely rejected"
 In these precincts Roosevelt had a plu- raifty of more than 10000.
 All the contention raised by the demo- crats relative to the method of convoss- ing the returns were upheld. From the beginning of the canvass the democratic GDnlllllllGtlitn DlNHtil lllSl0ttu iiictt ltiiiS lists be counted rather than the certi- fications totals, but the supervisors took the latter figures.
 The decision caused consternation among progressive leaders and the mem bers of the canvassing board because of the brief time remaining for the final certification and forwarding of .he re- turns to the secretary of state failure to do which by next Monday would re- suit in the vote of the banner Roosevelt county being lost with it's approximity 200O plurality for the progressive presiden- tial candidate. It is also pointed out that the method adopted by the supervisors makes q complete recount of 727 precincts in the county necessary and the work of canvassing the returns in the manner stipulated by the court will necessifate night and day work continuously 1intl the last moment for despatching the cer- tified returns to the secretary of state.