Opinion ID: 2818666
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellees

Text: Appellees respond that outside of special enrollment (which is not at issue here), 53 P.S. § 55207 requires timely utilization of the United States census. Appellees assert that limiting second- to first-class township referendum questions to the first election following formal population density ascertainment is the only way to “allow the electorate, elected officials, potential candidates, and the County Board of Elections a rational and 10 53 P.S. §§ 55209-55209(a) state that: At any time, not less than one year before the time fixed for taking a decennial census of the United States, whenever the owners of twenty-five per centum of the assessed valuation of the real estate of any township of the first class shall present their petition to the court of quarter sessions averring that the township no longer has a population of three hundred inhabitants to the square mile, and shall give such security as the court may prescribe for the payment of all costs and expenses which may be incurred in any procedure had upon said petition, the court shall appoint a commissioner to perform the duties hereafter prescribed. . . . . 53 P.S. § 55209 (ascertainment of population). At the first general or municipal election occurring at least ninety days after the ascertainment by special enrollment or from the last preceding United States census, that any township of the first class no longer has a population of at least three hundred inhabitants to the square mile, the question whether such township of the first class shall be reestablished as a township of the second class shall be submitted to the voters of the township . . . . 53 P.S. § 55209(a) (submission of question to voters; returns of election, and effect thereof). [J-110-2014] - 8 reasonable basis to consider submission of [the] question to voters until the results of the next census are ascertained.” Appellees’ Brief at 4. Appellees otherwise maintain that Appellant’s “distorted logic” would allow, with respect to the 2010 census, for the consideration of second- to first-class township referendum questions any time between 2012 and 2020. Id. Appellees claim that within this timeframe, “[p]ossibly 3 to 4 municipal election cycles could have taken place in which the majority of voters elected supervisors only to have this mandate potentially overturned,” and that “a candidate could run for supervisor in a municipal election held 90 days after ascertainment, lose the election, then . . . circulate a petition for First Class the following year for the sole purpose of unseating the duly elected supervisor.” Id.