Opinion ID: 1257891
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Legislative History Argument

Text: The legislative history of section 1-7-309 does not support the Morans' contention that section 1-7-309 prohibits only the marking of more names than there are eligible persons to be elected to an office. As the Morans correctly note, voting in Colorado in 1891 excluded write-in candidacy and permitted voting solely for candidates whose names appeared on the ballot. [7] Write-in voting finally became legal in Colorado in 1894 with the amendment of the general election laws of 1891. Ch. 7, sec. 2, § 18, 1894 Colo.Sess.Laws 59, 62. Candidates in 1891 appeared on the ballot only if they were willing and eligible to be elected to the office in question. That write-in voting was not possible until 1894, however, in no way supports the Morans' contention that section 1-7-309 was intended to apply only to two or more votes for eligible persons. First, the General Assembly in 1894 amended the 1891 general election laws to permit write-in voting yet did not amend what is now section 1-7-309 to prohibit only the double marking of eligible candidates. The General Assembly has repeatedly repealed and reenacted the defective ballot law without significant change. We interpret this near century of legislative silence as a refusal to narrow the reach of section 1-7-309 to eligible candidates. Second, the Morans misperceive the purpose section 1-7-309 was designed to serve. Section 1-7-309 was designed to ensure an accurate and honest vote by eliminating those ballots which do not clearly demonstrate the voter's choice of a particular candidate because of a vote for more persons than available offices. Voting for two or more persons for one office gives no indication as to which person the elector desires to hold the office, and as such, is defective. In this way, section 1-7-309 is consistent with the cardinal principle controlling the count of enforcing the intention of the voter as expressed upon the face of his ballot. Nicholls, 27 Colo. at 442, 62 P. at 205. Whereas section 1-7-309 seeks to effectuate the elector's intent where possible by rejecting a ballot only where the checking off of more than one name obscures that intent, section 1-4-1001 seeks to defeat the elector's intent by rejecting a clearly expressed choice for a person who did not file an affidavit of intent for the office in question. Even though section 1-4-1001 prohibits these ballots from counting for Brinker, the four electors may well have intended that result when they wrote in and checked off Brinker's name for the District 3 race. The four electors may just as well have intended their ballots to count for Moran when they checked off his name for the District 3 race. Counting those ballots for either candidate does not ensure an accurate and honest count, even though the ballots could not count for Brinker because of section 1-4-1001. The purpose of section 1-7-309 is therefore fulfilled only if these four ballots are rejected.