Opinion ID: 2246860
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Uninitialled Absentee Ballots

Text: We first consider whether the trial court erred in counting absentee ballots which did not contain the initials of an election judge. The parties stipulated at trial that 27 in-precinct ballots and 55 absentee ballots did not contain the initials of an election judge. The parties agreed at trial that the uninitialled in-precinct ballots would not be counted. They disagreed as to the admissibility of the uninitialled absentee ballots. Prior to the recount, the appellee argued that the uninitialled absentee ballots should be considered, and the appellant argued that they should not. The trial court ruled in the appellee's favor. After the recount, the positions of the parties changed as to this issue, and the appellee asked the trial court to reconsider its ruling that the uninitialled absentee ballots should be counted. The trial court granted the motion to reconsider, and again ruled that the uninitialled absentee ballots should be counted. Section 7-44 of the Election Code (Ill. Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 46, par. 7-44) provides that the election judge shall give a voter a primary ballot, on the back of which the primary judge shall endorse his initials. Sections 19-9 and 24A-10.1 of the Election Code extend this requirement to absentee ballots. Section 24A-10.1 specifies: Immediately after the closing of the polls, the absentee ballots delivered to the precinct judges of election by the election authority shall be examined to determine that such ballots comply with Sections 19-9 and 20-9 of this Act and are entitled to be deposited in the ballot box; those entitled to be deposited in the ballot box shall be initialed by the precinct judges of election and deposited in the ballot box. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 46, par. 24A-10.1.) Section 7-51 of the Election Code specifies that [n]o primary ballot, without the endorsement of the judge's initials thereon, shall be counted. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 46, par. 7-51.) Section 24A-10.1 also provides that the judges of election shall examine all ballot cards in the ballot box to determine whether they contain the initials of an election judge. If any ballot card or ballot card envelope is not initialled, it must be marked Defective on the back and not counted. Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 46, par. 24A-10.1. Our courts have held that the statutory requirement that judges of election initial each ballot before placing it in the ballot box is mandatory, and that no ballot without such initials may be counted. ( Tuthill v. Rendelman (1944), 387 Ill. 321, 330, 56 N.E.2d 375 (rejecting uninitialled in-precinct ballots); Morandi v. Heiman (1961), 23 Ill.2d 365, 178 N.E.2d 314 (rejecting uninitialled absentee ballots).) In Craig v. Peterson (1968), 39 Ill.2d 191, 233 N.E.2d 345, however, the court held the initialling requirement directory and allowed the counting of uninitialled absentee ballots. The trial court here, relying upon Craig, allowed the uninitialled absentee ballots to be counted. In Craig, the plaintiff argued that the absentee ballots returned from 14 precincts should be invalidated because none of them contained the initials of an election judge. The defendant responded that the statutory requirement of initialling was directory, rather than mandatory, and that the ballots should be counted. The Craig court acknowledged that the application of the statutory initialling requirement is mandatory in the usual case, because it enables the election judges to identify those ballots which they have personally placed in the ballot box, and therefore is an effective safeguard against fraudulent practices such as stuffing a ballot box. The court found, however, that statutory requirements which deprive qualified voters of their right to have their vote counted, without fault on the part of the voters, are constitutionally suspect where such requirements do not contribute to the integrity of the election process. The court concluded that application of the initialling requirement to absentee ballots at issue in Craig was unnecessary to ensure the integrity of the election and, therefore, construed the initialling requirement as directory in that case. In Craig, all voters who voted in person at the polling place used voting machines. Therefore, the election judges did not initial in-precinct ballots. The only paper ballots used in the election were those cast by absentee voters. None of the absentee ballots were initialled. The court concluded that, under the circumstances, the initialling requirement did not contribute to the integrity of the election process. The court observed that the initialling requirement did not assist in separating the illegally cast from the legally cast ballots for there were no other paper ballots    and there is no claim that these absentee ballots were altered, tampered with or in any way improperly preservedin fact it is stipulated that these are the identical ballots received by the absentee voters from the county clerk. Craig, 39 Ill.2d at 199, 233 N.E.2d 345. The court concluded that mandatory application of the initialling requirement to the absentee ballots in such circumstances would disfranchise a substantial number of qualified voters who had done everything in their power to comply with the law, without actually contributing to the integrity of the election. In fact, application of the initialling requirement might enable corrupt election judges to deliberately refrain from initialling ballots of those absentee voters who they had reason to believe voted other than the way the judges desired. Although the court noted that this possibility always exists as to absentee ballots, courts permitted this risk in other elections only because there was no other means of separating legally from illegally cast ballots. In Craig, on the other hand, no such justification existed. Because the initialling requirement was not necessary to ensure the integrity of the election at issue, the court in Craig counted the uninitialled absentee ballots. The Craig court stated that its decision was not inconsistent with the result in Morandi v. Heiman (1961), 23 Ill.2d 365, 178 N.E.2d 314, where uninitialled absentee ballots were not counted. The court noted that Morandi involved an all-paper-ballot election in which identical ballots were used by in-precinct and absentee voters. Thus, in Morandi, unlike Craig, there was no satisfactory method of separating the absentee ballots from the illegally cast in-precinct ballots. Although the respondent in Morandi attempted to show that the absentee ballots could be distinguished from the in-precinct ballots, because they had been folded differently than the in-precinct ballots, the court in Morandi concluded that attempting to distinguish `a validly cast ballot from an illegal one upon such fortuitous circumstance would be a dangerous rule.' Craig, 39 Ill.2d at 198, 233 N.E.2d 345, quoting Morandi v. Heiman (1961), 23 Ill.2d 365, 374, 178 N.E.2d 314. Two appellate court decisions have considered the statutory requirement that ballots must be endorsed by an election judge in light of Craig. ( Snow v. Natzke (1986), 140 Ill.App.3d 367, 94 Ill.Dec. 830, 488 N.E.2d 1077; Goble v. Board of Education (1980), 83 Ill.App.3d 284, 38 Ill.Dec. 919, 404 N.E.2d 343.) In Goble, the court applied Craig to an all-paper-ballot election and held that nine absentee ballots could be counted even though they were not endorsed by an election judge. The court noted that the parties had stipulated to the absence of fraud and that the sole irregularity complained of was the failure to initial the absentee ballots. The court concluded that the initialling requirement must be held directory in circumstances where the exclusion of the uninitialled ballots would disfranchise innocent voters without contributing to the integrity of the election process. In Snow v. Natzke (1986), 140 Ill.App.3d 367, 94 Ill.Dec. 830, 488 N.E.2d 1077, the court refused to count ballots which did not bear the initials of an election judge. The court concluded that the rule in Craig did not apply unless the evidence positively demonstrated that the uninitialled ballots were cast by absentee voters rather than persons voting in person at the polling place. As stated, the trial court here, relying upon Craig, concluded that the initialling provisions were directory and counted the uninitialled absentee ballots. In so holding, the trial court concluded that the uninitialled ballots were absentee ballots and that those ballots were validly cast. The appellee argues that Craig does not apply here. She argues that Craig is limited to machine elections in which the only paper ballots used are absentee ballots. She argues that this election was an all-paper-ballot election because both the in-precinct and the absentee ballots were paper punch card ballots. The appellee also argues that Craig is not applicable here because the parties did not enter into a stipulation that the absentee ballots were authentic. The appellant responds that Craig applies to any election in which the uninitialled absentee ballots can be readily identified and distinguished from uninitialled, and thus invalidly cast, in-precinct ballots. She argues that the expert trial testimony of Robert Logay, director of elections for the county clerk, established that the absentee ballots used in this election are readily identifiable because they contain handwritten precinct numbers. The in-precinct ballots, on the other hand, contain preprinted precinct numbers. The appellant also argues that the fact that the parties did not enter into a stipulation is irrelevant here, because neither party raised any allegation of fraud or questioned the authenticity of the disputed absentee ballots. We conclude that the trial court correctly allowed the uninitialled absentee ballots to be counted. Under Craig, uninitialled absentee ballots may be counted only if: (1) the absentee ballots can be identified and distinguished from in-precinct ballots; and (2) the initialling requirement does not contribute to the integrity of the election process. In Craig, ballots cast by absentee voters were readily identifiable, because voters at the polling place used voting machines. Here too, ballots cast by absentee voters are readily identifiable and distinguishable from ballots cast by voters at the polling place. The testimony at trial established that all absentee ballots have handwritten precinct numbers, while in-precinct ballots have pre-printed precinct numbers. Because the uninitialled absentee ballots can be readily distinguished from uninitialled in-precinct ballots, the first prong of Craig is satisfied. Cf. Morandi v. Heiman (1961), 23 Ill.2d 365, 178 N.E.2d 314 (uninitialled absentee ballots could not be distinguished from the uninitialled in-precinct ballots). The question of whether application of the initialling requirement to absentee ballots is necessary to maintain the integrity of the election process is a closer question. Applying the initialling requirement to in-precinct ballots is certainly necessary to preserve the integrity of the election, because the initials provide the only means by which the election officials can identify and separate the legally cast from the illegally cast in-precinct ballots. Thus, here, as in Craig, application of the initialling requirement to in-precinct ballots prevented fraudulent practices, such as stuffing the ballot box. Because absentee ballots are not cast in the polling place, and are not opened until after the polls have closed, application of the initialling requirement to such ballots is not necessary to prevent voters from fraudulently stuffing the ballot box. Here, as in Craig, neither party questioned the legitimacy of the uninitialled absentee ballots or alleged any fraud or other irregularity. Accordingly, under the reasoning adopted in Craig, application of the initialling requirement is not necessary to preserve the integrity of the election process. The appellee argues, however, that this case is distinguishable from Craig because the parties in Craig stipulated that the absentee ballots were the identical ballots that the absentee voters received from the county clerk. She claims that no such stipulation exists here. Accordingly, she argues that application of the initialling requirement safeguards the integrity of the election process because it guards against the possibility that some unauthorized person fraudulently replaced the genuine initialled absentee ballots with substitute uninitialled ballots sometime after the genuine ballots were deposited in the ballot box. Basically, the appellee argues that application of the initialling requirement is necessary to ward against the possibility that someone tampered with the absentee ballots after election night. We must reject the appellee's attempt to distinguish Craig on this ground. The parties here entered into a stipulation that any and all ballots sought to be admitted into evidence at trial, including the uninitialled absentee ballots questioned here, had been properly preserved from election night to the time of their presentation in court, and that their preservation was in accordance with the provisions of the Election Code and other applicable statutory provisions. Because the appellee stipulated that the uninitialled absentee ballots were properly preserved, she is now precluded from arguing that application of the initialling requirement is necessary to ensure that there was no tampering with the absentee ballots before they were presented to the court. This stipulation, like the stipulation in Craig, removed any concern that other ballots were substituted for the authentic absentee ballots after election night. Because the uninitialled absentee ballots are readily identifiable and distinguishable from in-precinct ballots, and because application of the initialling requirement is not necessary to safeguard the integrity of the election process, we conclude that Craig applies. Accordingly, the trial court properly counted the uninitialled absentee ballots.