Court Opinion

ID: 9738801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:03:02.579337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:08.527564
License: Public Domain

Otis, Justice
(dissenting).
I agree with the majority of the court that authorizing an election contest affecting legislative office is a right which may be granted or withheld at the will of the legislature; that a recount is merely ancillary to the judicial proceedings; and that as a matter of public policy contests which are based on pure speculation should be discouraged. However, taking the statutes by their four corners, I am not persuaded that the legislature intended to limit a recount to the precincts where a contestant shows concrete, tangible evidence of error.
Minn. St. 209.02 requires only that the contestant specify the points on which the contest is to be made. However ineptly drafted, the notice in the instant case specifies that—
“* * * the only question is as to which of the Parties in said Senatorial Contest received the highest number of votes legally cast * * * »»
It seems clear that the contestant Christenson claims only mathematical errors. The contestee Allen seems to concede that had such errors been alleged on information and belief rather than by asserting that “[pjlaintiff has reason to believe that possible errors could have *404occurred in the counting of ballots,” the court would have had jurisdiction. In my opinion the distinction is entirely one of form and not of substance.
In order to marshal the kind of substantial evidence of error which would justify an unqualified allegation conforming to Rule 11 of Rules of Civil Procedure, a candidate would ordinarily be required to invoke § 204.16 and furnish a challenger in every precinct in his district in order to conduct an independent canvass contemporaneously with that undertaken by the official members of the canvassing board.1 This I submit is wholly unrealistic and a complete departure from existing practice.
That it is not a matter of legislative policy that recounts be conducted only where a candidate has tangible evidence of error is apparent from the language of § 209.06. That statute authorizes an inspection of the ballots in whatever precincts either party desires to designate, regardless of whether they are precincts in which a party in his original petition has alleged that errors occurred. For example, it is not my understanding that the contestant in the current gubernatorial contest was obliged to allege irregularities in every precinct of the state in order to secure the statewide recount which is now in progress. If it was the intention of the legislature to permit a total recount under these conditions, it occurs to me that logically they did not intend to preclude this procedure in initiating an original action where there is manifestly an equal probability of error.
For us to determine judicially that there is no basis for alleging the likelihood of an erroneous determination of an election result, where a change of 34 votes or 1/10 of 1 percent would reverse the outcome, is to blind ourselves to all the realities of the election processes, particularly where a great many paper ballots are used. I believe we can take judicial notice that in the situation confronting us there were sufficient errors to justify a contest.
*405As we said, in Moon v. Harris, 122 Minn. 138, 140, 142 N. W. 12, 13:
“* * * This court has never been averse to the allowance of a fair opportunity of ascertaining the actual result of an election. The important thing is that the truth be ascertained and the will of the voters be given effect; * *
K it had been the purpose of the legislature to confer jurisdiction only where specific errors in specific precincts have been ascertained and alleged, it seems to me the statute would have been so drafted. However, having sanctioned a recount in precincts where no allegation of error is required, the legislature, I believe, has indicated an intention to give the statute a liberal construction so that doubts in the outcome of an election may be judicially resolved and the true vote of the people determined.

Minn. St. 204.16, subd. 2. “At any election each nonpartisan candidate may appoint by written certificate, and the judges shall permit, one voter for each precinct to be in the polling place while the election is being held and to remain with the election board until the votes are canvassed and the results declared, to act as challenger of voters.”