Opinion ID: 2341262
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Merits Determination

Text: Having decided that the circuit court properly exercised its jurisdiction over the board-of-directors election, this court turns next to the question of whether the election should be vacated because the circuit court impermissibly limited the definition of an eligible voter, which, according to the appellants, is religious in nature. [7] This court has, on many occasions, explained that an appellant must demonstrate prejudice or this court will not reverse. See, e.g., Commercial Energy Users Group v. Ark. Pub. Serv. Com'n, 369 Ark. 13, 20, 250 S.W.3d 225, 231 (2007). This is true even when the error is of constitutional proportions. McCoy Farms, Inc. v. J & M McKee, 263 Ark. 20, 27, 563 S.W.2d 409, 413 (1978). In the case before us, the circuit court, through its special master, provided for provisional balloting for every person who wished to vote and who met the definition of an eligible voter advanced by the appellants. Those provisional ballots were counted, and they did not change the results of the election. To repeat, the circuit court found in its order on this point: [T]he court felt it would be ripe for fraud to not have some clear direction on who the membership was, so it elected to use the membership list that had been provided by both the Plaintiff and the Defendant in their previous litigation. The Defendant was unhappy with that, and informed the Court that there were at least four hundred other people who were being disenfranchised by the Court's ruling, so the Court established a provisional vote, and said that those people could vote, and we would then count their vote and see if it made any difference in the ultimate disposition of the case. Ultimately a provisional vote was taken and it made no difference in the disposition of the case. The appellants, nonetheless, contend that the use of provisional ballots was, in itself, prejudicial, because the provisional ballots were never meant to determine the outcome of the contest. This argument misses the mark. The prejudice that the appellants must demonstrate is that certain eligible voters, as members of the temple, were disenfranchised and that this disenfranchisement affected, or at least might have affected, the outcome of the election. Here, the provisional ballots prove otherwise. Nor is the appellants' argument that the use of provisional ballots may have suppressed voter turnout persuasive. The election procedures, including the use of provisional ballots, were established and made public well before the election. Although only those on the approved-voter list received mailed notice of the election, the appellants had the opportunity to notify provisional voters of the election by means of the temple bulletin board, by public announcements at the temple, or by word of mouth. Thus, anyone claiming to attend and worship at the temple had the opportunity to have his or her vote recorded. Moreover, contrary to appellants' contention, we conclude that being relegated to casting a provisional vote is not per se prejudicial. Those provisional votes totaling 736 in number were, in fact, counted, and the appellees' slate of board members still prevailed. Indeed, there was no proof presented that a person who appeared at the temple to vote on September 10, 2006, was turned away as ineligible to vote under the provisional procedure. Finding no prejudice to the appellants and holding that the circuit court used neutral principles in the conduct and approval of the election, we affirm the court's order.