Court Opinion

ID: 9540729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:19:23.003444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:14.946286
License: Public Domain

Justice MULLARKEY
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
In this ease, the majority affirms the district court’s ruling upholding the Secretary of State’s (the Secretary) final decision that the petitioners had not collected a sufficient number of valid signatures to place their proposed constitutional amendment on the November 1993 ballot. I concur with the majority except as it upholds the Secretary’s decision to invalidate signatures where the designation of “junior” or “senior” was omitted from either the petition or the master voter registration list. Maj. op. at 33.
In a recent opinion addressing the sufficiency of an initiative petition under Colorado’s constitutional and statutory provisions governing the exercise of the right of initiative and referendum, Loonan v. Woodley, 882 P.2d 1380 (Colo.1994), we held that “substantial compliance” is the appropriate standard to apply. We stated:
The right of initiative and referendum, like the right to vote, is a fundamental right under the Colorado Constitution. See Clark v. City of Aurora, 782 P.2d 771, 777 (Colo.1989) (right of initiative); Meyer v. Lamm, 846 P.2d 862 (Colo.1993) (right to vote).... In light of the nature and seriousness of these rights, we have held that constitutional and statutory provisions governing the initiative process should be “liberally construed” so that “the constitutional right reserved to the people ‘may be facilitated and not hampered by either technical statutory provisions or technical construction thereof, further than is necessary to fairly guard against fraud and mistake in the exercise by the people of this constitutional right.’ ” Montero v. Meyer, 795 P.2d 242 (Colo.1990) (citations omitted) .... [W]e now hold that substantial compliance is the appropriate standard to apply in the context of the right to initiative and referendum.
Loonan, 882 P.2d at 1383-84.
Under this standard, the omission of “senior” or “junior” from either the signature on an initiative petition or the master voter registration list should not automatically invalidate the signature. The majority has rejected the perfect match requirement with respect to street directional designations and, in my view, the perfect match requirement should be rejected in the senior/junior context as well. Unless the master voter list shows both senior and junior persons of the same name at the same address, there can be no confusion and no possible fraud. Requiring the senior/junior designation in the absence of such evidence elevates a mere technical defect to the level of substance and should not be used to restrict the right of initiative. Cf. Loveland v. Sears, 1 Colo. 433, 435 (1872) (omitting the word “junior” from plaintiffs name in the judgment was immate*37rial since “junior” is “no part of a name” and recitation in the judgment made clear that the judgment was rendered in plaintiff’s favor). Accordingly, I would hold that the Secretary improperly rejected signatures where the designation “senior” or “junior” had been omitted from either the petition or the master list.