Opinion ID: 1364196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the concept of sufficient to change the result

Text: Any malconduct on the part of election officials must be of sufficient magnitude to change the results of the election. AS 15.20.540. [5] In the present case, the trial court found cumulative malconduct sufficient to change the result of the primary election, but made no finding as to how the votes allegedly affected by malconduct could have changed the result of the election. Fulfillment of the statutory requirement rested on the court's belief that the malconduct impeached the integrity of the election process and placed the true outcome in doubt. This was error. We believe that more concrete standards must be applied in order to determine if votes affected by malconduct are sufficient in number to change the result of the election. The method used to determine if the malconduct could have changed the result of the election will depend upon whether the malconduct injected a bias into the vote. If the bias has tended to favor one candidate over another and the number of votes affected by the malconduct can be ascertained with precision, all such votes will be awarded to the disfavored candidate to determine if the result of the election would be changed. If the number of votes affected by the bias cannot be ascertained with precision, a new election may be ordered, depending upon the nature of the bias and the margin of votes separating the candidates. See Boucher v. Bomhoff, 495 P.2d 77 (Alaska 1972). Where the malconduct has not injected any bias into the vote, but instead affects individual votes in a random fashion, those votes should be either counted or disregarded, if they can be identified, and the results tabulated accordingly. Finally, if the malconduct has a random impact on votes and those votes cannot be precisely identified, we hold that the contaminated votes must be deducted from the vote totals of each candidate in proportion to the votes received by each candidate in the precinct or district where the contaminated votes were cast. See, e.g., Grounds v. Lawe, 67 Ariz. 176, 193 P.2d 447, 453 (1948); Singletary v. Kelley, 242 Cal. App.2d 611, 51 Cal. Rptr. 682 (1966); Russell v. McDowell, 83 Cal. 70, 23 P. 183, 184 (1890); Thornton v. Gardner, 30 Ill.2d 234, 195 N.E.2d 723, 724 (1964). Similarly if a specified number of votes should have been counted but are no longer available for counting, they should be added to the vote totals of each candidate in proportion to the votes received by the candidate in the precinct or district in which the votes would otherwise be counted. [6] The invalid votes will be deducted in this pro rata fashion to determine if the malconduct could have affected the result of the election. This is the procedure which should have been followed here with respect to those votes randomly affected by those actions of election officials which amount to malconduct.