Opinion ID: 1364196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: administration of cross-district and cross-precinct voting

Text: The superior court found that the administration of cross-precinct and cross-district voting by election officials at the local level constituted malconduct because of nonuniform and discriminatory application of voting procedures to individual voters. In addition, the trial court found that the state supplied inconsistent and conflicting information to voters and to election officials regarding policy on cross-district voting. We believe that, based upon the law and the facts, a finding of malconduct on behalf of election officials was error. We do not think that the facts reveal a nonuniform or discriminatory application of voting procedures to individual voters. The affidavits presented by appellees [14] tend to prove that the state's policy with respect to cross-precinct/cross-district voting was applied in an evenhanded fashion. [15] The affidavits of Patricia Ann Polley, Director, Division of Elections, and Betty Irvine, an elections official, reveal that the facts asserted by appellees' affiants were in accordance with the state's instructions to election officials. [16] There is no evidence to support the trial court's finding that hundreds of voters were denied their right to vote by being turned away from the polls or that thousands of voters would have exercised their franchise had the state's policy been made a matter of general knowledge. [17] Accordingly, we find no evidence of nonuniform enforcement sufficient to constitute malconduct. The superior court also concluded that the state supplied inconsistent and conflicting information to voters regarding policy on cross-precinct/cross-district voting. While we believe that there was some conflict in the state's messages, we hold that such inconsistencies neither amounted to a significant deviation from statutorily prescribed norms nor were they the product of conduct involving scienter. The lieutenant governor and election officials were acting in good faith in an attempt to enfranchise as many qualified voters as possible in accordance with what they perceived to be a valid and long-standing state policy. The superior court's finding of malconduct must therefore be reversed.