Opinion ID: 1691288
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Miscellaneous Votes to be Subtracted from Hale

Text: The following seven votes, however, are due to be subtracted from Hale's total, namely, those of S.B.H., D.H., M.H., Mi. H., E.H., T.L.M., and R.C. Neither S.B.H. nor M.H. is registered to vote. Both E.H. and T.L.M. testified that they did not vote in the election. R.C. has been convicted of a felony. Neither D.H. nor Mi. H. signed the affidavits purporting to be theirs. Finally, B.P., like those voters in block two, voted for Hale by on-site absentee ballot without the intention to be out of the county on election day. With the exclusion of these seven votes, Hale's total is reduced to 106,280. Woodward's total is 106,279. Thus, my final calculations place Hale ahead by one vote. For the following reasons, however, I conclude that this election is void and that the voters of Jefferson County are entitled to a new election. II. New Election In Part I of the main opinion, the majority asserts that there is no provision for this court to call a new election. I agree that there is no express, statutory authority. I disagree, however, with the assertion that this Court is without authority to require a new election. Where circumstances are truly extraordinary, courts will declare an election void, even without express statutory authority. Foulkes v. Hays, 85 Wash.2d 629, 632-33, 537 P.2d 777, 780 (1975) (necessary and proper powers would include the power to order a new election where no other remedy would adequately correct distortions in election results caused by fraud or neglect); cf. Terry v. Sencindiver, 153 W.Va. 651, 171 S.E.2d 480 (1969). Indeed, this Court has the inherent authorityand the dutyto enforce the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Alabama. This election contest implicates a number of guarantees afforded by the Constitution of the United States, including those contained in U.S. Const. art. IV, § 4, which provides: The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government.... [T]he right to vote is inherent in the republican form of government envisaged by Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 242, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962). Indeed, [e]mphasis on this basic right to vote is essential to the fair workings of the democratic process under our republican form of government. Kessler v. Grand Cent. Dist. Management Ass'n, Inc., 158 F.3d 92, 118 (2d Cir.1998). ` Governmental interference with the right to vote ... calls for active judicial protection of the background conditions for political deliberation, political equality, and citizenship.' Id. (quoting Cass R. Sunstein, The Partial Constitution 142-44 (1993)) (emphasis added). Also, the voters of Alabama enjoy specific due-process guarantees under both the Fourteenth Amendment and the Constitution of Alabama. This Court is charged with enforcing these guarantees. Moreover, it is expressly invested with the supervisory power of the judiciary of Alabama. Ala. Const.1901, amend. 328, § 6.02 ([t]he supreme court shall have original jurisdiction ... to issue such ... orders as may be necessary to give it general supervision and control of courts of inferior jurisdiction); Ala.Code 1975, § 12-2-7 (The Supreme Court shall have authority ... (3)[t]o issue ... such ... writs as are necessary to give to it a general superintendence and control of courts of inferior jurisdiction.) Thus, this Court has the constitutional, statutory, and inherent authority to abstain and to compel the courts of inferior jurisdiction to abstainwhere judicial action would violate fundamental guarantees of due process and the right to participate in our republican form of government. When the electoral process has become so tainted that the judiciary of Alabama cannot, consistent with the Constitutions of the United States and of Alabama, determine and declare the winner of an election, this Court has both the power and the duty to abstain and to enjoin further judicial action in the matter. In other words, the judiciary of Alabama cannot be compelled to participate in the violation of voters' constitutional rights. Such abstention is required in this case for a number or reasons. First, an enormous amount of confusion and controversy has been generated by the recent revisions of the absentee-ballot laws, which authorized the on-site ballots central to this case. Like the majority, I am deeply troubled by the fact that a large number of voters were encouraged to falsify their affidavits by election officials themselves. My concern is amplified by the fact that this Court cannot speak with one voice as to how to resolve the matter of on-site, absentee voting. But it is worse than useless to castigate and chastise election officials for failing to understand a new law on which this Court cannot agree. Second, there is still the matter of the 23 ballots from the Bessemer Division that have allegedly disappeared, of which I spoke in my special writing directed to our August 20, 1999, remand. As I stated there: As for those `23 on-site absentee affidavit envelopes from the Bessemer Division that contained no ballots when the parties examined them on July 7-8,' 752 So.2d at 1124, there is a factual issue regarding the disposition of the ballots those envelopes once contained. 752 So.2d at 1137. This issue has yet to be resolved to my satisfaction. Third, there is no cushionno margin of errorin this case. The margin of victory is razor-thin, regardless of whether one prefers my view of the evidence or that of the majority. Thus, every vote counts. Although conducting a new election would not resolve all the matters of law over which this Court cannot agree, it would, in all probability, change the margin of victory and render those legal issues academic. Fourth, this case has now been in the trial court repeatedly and in this Court a number of times. However, neither the trial court nor this Court has arrived at the same tally twice. Because of the unresolved controversy over the on-site absentee ballotsand missing ballotsthis Court can, simply by placing a particular interpretation on the testimony of A.B.W., L.B., S.M., A.S., D.K., and R.L., produce any result it wants. In other words, applying rules of law to this case does not remove it from the posture it is in, an unfortunate posture that will allow the decision in it to be seen as a conscious partisan decision. [45] Any such result is, therefore, fundamentally unfair, and fundamental fairness [is] the touchstone of due process. Armstrong v. State, 294 Ala. 100, 103 n. 1, 312 So.2d 620, 623 n. 1 (1975). Moreover, any such result is inconsistent with the democratic process and with the principles of a republican form of government. Thus, though I have no difficulty in deciding a case and although I have done my best to apply what I deem to be established principles of law in reaching my final tally in this case, I am not comfortable with the result. It is not my place to choose the sheriff of Jefferson County. Indeed, both of the former candidates, Mike Hale and Jim Woodward, are personally known to me. They are, as stated in an earlier order by Judge Wynn, both fine men. I knew and worked with them during the 17½ years that I served as a trial judge in Jefferson County, and I have a high regard and respect for each of them. Obviously, they are both well regarded by the voters of Jefferson County. The voters, not I and not the majority, must ultimately decide this case. As it stands now, doubt and suspicion will forever cloud this election. The voters of Jefferson County will never feel confident that the system worked. Under the peculiar and extraordinary circumstances of this case, this Court has the power and the duty to abstain from rendering a decision on the merits. In other words, it has the power and the duty to abstain from [g]overnmental interference with the right to vote. Kessler, 158 F.3d at 118. Thus, consistent with its power under the laws of the United States and the laws of Alabama, this Court should declare the November 1998 election for sheriff of Jefferson County void. Such a declaration would automatically invoke the political processes of this state, setting the stage for `political deliberation, political equality, and citizenship,' id., through a new election. By forging ahead to enter a judgment on the merits, the majority violates the constitutional and statutory law of the United States and that of Alabama. For these reasons, I dissent.