Opinion ID: 1691288
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Procurement Formalities

Text: The majority excludes from its tally of legal votes those of 12 persons who failed in some respect strictly to comply with provisions of the regular absentee ballot law. Specifically, it excludes the votes of R.T., K.C.T., T.T., M.T., C.H., K.H., C.M.L., A.B.W., J.A.W., E.H., A.H., and P.H. These persons all voted for Hale. The majority excludes their votes because the voters did not personally sign the affidavit accompanying their ballot. However, with some of these voters, the affidavit was signed by a family member with the permissionor at the requestof the voter. Moreover, the trial court found that two of these voters, namely, R.T. and A.B.W., were physically disabled. Thus, from the voters in this block, the majority requires strict compliance as it did in Taylor. Following the precedent of Taylor, I agree that the votes of all but R.T. and A.B.W. were invalid. Taylor involved an election contest initiated by Regina Taylor, the unsuccessful candidate for a position on the Bay Minette city council. 710 So.2d at 407. Taylor challenged the validity of four absentee ballots cast for John Cox, her opponent, on the ground that the four absentee voters had not themselves signed the application form for the absentee ballots. Id. (emphasis in original). In doing so, she relied on Ala.Code 1975, § 17-10-4, which provides in pertinent part: The application required in Section 17-10-3(a) shall be filed with the person designated to serve as the absentee election manager. The application shall be in a form prescribed and designed by the Secretary of State and shall be used throughout the state. Notwithstanding the foregoing, handwritten applications can also be accepted at any time prior to the five day deadline to receive absentee ballot applications as provided in Section 17-10-3(a). The application shall contain sufficient information to identify the applicant and shall include the applicant's name, residence address, or such other information necessary to verify that the applicant is a registered voter. Any applicant may receive assistance in filling out the application as he or she desires, but each application shall be manually signed by the applicant and, if he or she signs by mark, the name of the witness to his or her signature shall be signed thereon. 710 So.2d at 409-10 (Cook, J., dissenting) (emphasis in Taylor ). The applicants in Taylor were a 99-year-old man [and] his 90-year-old wife, who [was] bedridden; a long-distance truck driver; and a full-time college student. 710 So.2d at 408 n. 4. The applicants had ... designated agent[s] sign the application form[s] for them. Id. at 407. There was no dispute that the challenged ballots were properly notarized or witnessed, and the trial court held that the they were valid. Id. Nevertheless, this Court reversed the judgment of the trial court, reasoning that the language and meaning of the phrase manually signed by the applicant were clear. Id. at 408. The holding and rationale of Cox, therefore, mandate that ballots accompanied by affidavits that have not been manually signed by the voter are invalid. Following the precedent of Cox, I subtract 10 votes from Hale's total. The tally thus becomes 106,288 votes for Hale; 106,311 votes for Woodward. Woodward leads by 23 votes. Taylor does not, however, require the exclusion of the votes of R.T. and A.B.W., the two disabled voters in this block. The trial court expressly found these voters to be so physically disabled as to require assistance in voting. The majority, nevertheless, disqualifies their votes because they solicited the aid of their wives in signing their affidavits and in marking their ballots. In other words, the majority excludes their votes, simply because they did not manually sign their own affidavits. Indeed, the majority hypothetically suggests that a question may arise as to how a person who is completely paralyzed or otherwise disabled can comply with this rule. 752 So.2d at 1158 n. 29 (emphasis added). Thus the majority hints that it might view more sympathetically the attempts of R.T. and A.B.W. to exercise their elective franchiseif only they were completely paralyzed. Because they were not completely paralyzed, however, the majority defers any further consideration of this matter. This Court need not await a case involving a literal quadriplegic. Federal law requires that the votes of R.T. and A.B.W. be counted. Specifically, 42 U.S.C. § 1973aa-6, of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, provides:  Any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the voter's choice, other than the voter's employer or agent of that employer or officer or agent of the voter's union. (Emphasis added.) Similarly, 42 U.S.C. § 12132, a part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), provides: Subject to the provisions of this subchapter, no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity. [41] Congress passed the ADA in 1990 on the basis of the following findings: The Congress finds that (1) some 43,000,000 Americans have one or more physical or mental disabilities, and this number is increasing as the population as a whole is growing older; (2) historically, society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals with disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such forms of discrimination against individuals with disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive social problem; (3) discrimination against individuals with disabilities persists in such critical areas as employment, housing, public accommodations, education, transportation, communication, recreation, institutionalization, health services, voting, and access to public services; (4) unlike individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age, individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of disability have often had no legal recourse to redress such discrimination; (5) individuals with disabilities continually encounter various forms of discrimination, including outright intentional exclusion, the discriminatory effects of architectural, transportation, and communication barriers, over-protective rules and policies, failure to make modifications to existing facilities and practices, exclusionary qualification standards and criteria, segregation, and relegation to lesser services, programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other opportunities; (6) census data, national polls, and other studies have documented that people with disabilities, as a group, occupy an inferior status in our society, and are severely disadvantaged socially, vocationally, economically, and educationally; (7) individuals with disabilities are a discrete and insular minority who have been faced with restrictions and limitations, subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment, and relegated to a position of political powerlessness in our society, based on characteristics that are beyond the control of such individuals and resulting from stereotypic assumptions not truly indicative of the individual ability of such individuals to participate in, and contribute to, society; (8) the Nation's proper goals regarding individuals with disabilities are to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for such individuals; and (9) the continuing existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination and prejudice denies people with disabilities the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities for which our free society is justifiably famous, and costs the United States billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses resulting from dependency and nonproductivity. 42 U.S.C. § 12101(a) (emphasis added). Congress further declared: It is the purpose of this chapter (1) to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities; (2) to provide clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards addressing discrimination against individuals with disabilities; . . . . (4) to invoke the sweep of congressional authority, including the power to enforce the fourteenth amendment and to regulate commerce, in order to address the major areas of discrimination faced day-to-day by people with disabilities. 42 U.S.C. § 12101(b) (emphasis added). The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that `[i]t is basic to [the] constitutional command [of the Supremacy Clause] that all conflicting state [laws] be without effect.' Cantley v. Lorillard Tobacco Co., 681 So.2d 1057, 1059 (Ala.1996) (quoting Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 746, 101 S.Ct. 2114, 68 L.Ed.2d 576 (1981)). Therefore, when federal and state laws conflict, the federal law triumphs and preempts the conflicting state law. Id. It does so in this case. In implementing the laudable and legitimate purposes expressed in § 12101(b), Congress has, through the ADA and the Voting Rights Act, modified and superseded the state law upon which the majority relies to invalidate the votes of R.T. and A.B.W., namely, § 17-10-4, and Taylor, which construed it. Thus, 42 U.S.C. § 1973aa-6, which authorizes [a]ny voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of ... disability to solicit and receive assistance from a person of the voter's choice, modifies and supersedes § 17-10-4, to the extent it requires the voter manually [to] sign the absentee-ballot affidavit. See Dipietrae v. City of Philadelphia, 666 A.2d 1132, 1135 (Pa.Commw.Ct.1995) (on the basis of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1973aa-6 and 12132, the trial court properly allowed a disabled voter to appoint a person of his... choice to obtain an absentee ballot application, to deliver it to the Election Board, to obtain an absentee ballot from the Board and to deliver the completed ballot ... to the mail box or to the Board), aff'd, 543 Pa. 591, 673 A.2d 905 (1996). The trial court's finding that these voters needed physical assistance in voting is subject to the presumptions that attach to evidence presented ore tenus. [42] It is undisputed that R.T. and A.B.W. solicited the aid of their wives in signing their affidavits and in marking their ballots. It is further undisputed that these acts were done in their presence. Under these circumstances, this Court cannot, consistent with the Voting Rights Act and the ADA, exclude the votes of R.T. and A.B.W. In doing so, the majority violates the fundamental guarantees of the statutes and the Constitution of the United States. R.T. and A.B.W. voted for Hale and those votes are due to be counted. Consequently, Woodward's total remains 106,311 and Hale's total is reduced by 10 to 106,288. Woodward's lead extends to 23 votes.