Court Opinion

ID: 9693227
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:31:03.972901+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:42.978117
License: Public Domain

Currie,- :J.
(dissenting). I find myself in disagreement with the majority opinion, which holds' that the provisión in se'c. 11.57, Stats., as to the clerk delivering the absentee ballot *239personally at his office, is mandatory and not directory. By such determination 18 electors of the town who had legitimately requested absentee ballots have been disenfranchised merely because the clerk was obliging enough to personally deliver such ballots at these electors’ homes instead of mailing them, or insisting that the ballots be called for at the clerk’s home, which was his office.
Conceivably the provision for personal delivery of absentee ballots at the clerk’s office was inserted in the statute for the convenience of an elector, who knows he is going to be absent from the municipality on the day of the election, and not for the purpose of restricting the manner of personal delivery of ballots by the clerk. This being so, such provision should be held to be directory only. This is because courts should be extremely hesitant about adopting a construction of election statutes which disenfranchises voters, not because of their own act but because of the. act-of some election official.
I would affirm the judgment below.