Court Opinion

ID: 9761236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:35:15.536268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:20.967056
License: Public Domain

OSBORNE, Judge
(dissenting).
I find myself compelled to dissent from the majority opinion in this case for several reasons.
First, the right to contest a primary election in this state and the procedures to be followed in the contest are specifically set out by statute. Nowhere in the majority opinion is that statute mentioned.
Second, the statute specifically provides the remedies that can be afforded by a court in a contest of a primary election. The majority opinion does not comply with the statutory limits and in fact grants a remedy different from that set out in the statute.
The contest of primary elections is covered by KRS 122.010, etc. As these statutes contain much material which is not relevant to this particular case, I will hereby set them out in an abbreviated form quoting that material which is relevant. KRS 122.020 provides:
“Any candidate for nomination to office at a primary election held under the provisions of KRS 119.010 to 119.990, for whom a number of votes was cast equal to not less than fifty percent of the votes cast for the successful candidate for nomination to such office, may contest *828the right of the successful candidate, and of any other candidate for nomination to such office, to such nomination, by filing a petition in the circuit court within fifteen days from the day of the primary election, stating the specific grounds relied upon for the contests, * * * The contestee shall file his answer within ten days after service of summons. The answer may contain grounds of contest in favor of the contestee * * * but the grounds must be specifically set out. * * * No ground of contest by either party shall be filed or made more definite by amendment after the expiration of the time allowed by this section for filing the original pleading. * * * the clerk shall immediately docket the cause and notify the presiding judge of the court that the contest has been instituted, and the judge shall proceed to a trial of the cause within five days after the issue was joined.”
KRS 122.030 provides:
“Each party to a contest instituted under KRS 122.020 shall be entitled, in the production of evidence to be used on the trial thereof, to all the remedies allowed in cases of law and in equity. In trying the contest the court shall hear and determine all questions of law and fact without the intervention of a jury, * * If it appears from an inspection of the whole record that there has been such fraud, intimidation, bribery or violence in the conduct of the election that neither contestant nor contestee can be adjudged to have been fairly nominated, the court may adjudge that there has been no election, in which event the nomination shall be deemed vacant(Emphasis added).
Three things are made abundantly clear from the foregoing statutes: 1. A contestant must state specific grounds upon which he relies for the contest and these cannot be amended after time for filing the pleading has expired. 2. If it appears from the record before the court that because of fraud, intimidation, bribery or violence it cannot be fairly determined who was the winner of the election, the court has the power to adjudge that there has been no election. 3. By inference from number two, if the court can declare who has been the winner of the primary it will do so. Of course, in order to do this it must be able to accurately determine who received the greater number of valid votes cast.
In my judgment the majority opinion misses on two points. The contestant did not specifically allege the grounds upon which he relied to contest the election and the opinion itself in remanding the case does not restrict future proceedings to those authorized by the statute. The majority opinion states:
“ * * * it is not enough merely that the number of voided votes be sufficient to have affected the mathematical outcome of the election; in addition the voided votes must be a substantial proportion of the total votes cast in the election.”
This rule is diametrically opposed to the statute, as the statute only requires that the court be unable to determine who fairly won the election. Therefore, the invalid votes in number would only be required to be sufficient to make the rightful outcome in doubt. This court, as it has done in so many other instances, has completely rewritten the statute and in doing so has stated, restated and retracted on so many various rules that no one can read our cases and formulate any intelligent conclusion concerning the position of the election laws in this state. The so-called “20 percent rule” which has attempted to be watered down in this opinion was so rigidly applied in Gregory v. Stubblefield, Ky., 316 S.W.2d 689, that a member of the United States Congress was unable to get his complaint before this court. His complaint contained allegations in much greater specificity than the one presently before us.
My analysis of the total election contest laws of this jurisdiction leads me to believe that there are only four procedures that can *829be followed: 1. An action for recount of the votes. In this process the judiciary merely recounts those votes cast and if the vote is valid upon its face it is counted, otherwise it is not. The only discretion within the power of the judiciary in this procedure is to determine whether or not a vote is valid upon its face and for whom it was cast. 2. An action to eliminate named and specified votes because they were illegally cast. In this type procedure the court may hear evidence and determine for whom the vote was cast and if it was illegally cast. In this proceeding the court will deduct from the total of the candidate those votes shown to have been illegally cast for him and at the termination of the proceeding will declare which candidate received the greater number of valid votes. 3. Proceedings to declare a nomination or election invalid because of violations of the Corrupt Practices Act. Here the court may determine if there has been sufficient violation of the Act to declare a nomination invalid. 4. Proceedings such as the one we now have before us where it is alleged that because of fraud, intimidation, bribery or violence in the conduct of the election that it cannot accordingly be determined which candidate received the largest number of votes. In this instance, if it cannot be determined which candidate received the largest number of votes, then the entire election must be cast out. The only relief authorized by KRS 122.030 is to declare the nomination vacant.
For the foregoing reasons I believe the majority opinion is clearly wrong. First in not dismissing the complaint because of failure to specifically allege the invalid acts. Second in remanding the case requiring the voided votes to be a substantial portion of the total vote. I think it enough that the invalid votes were sufficient to leave the rightful outcome in doubt.
When a statute under which the court is acting limits the relief to declaring the nomination vacant, certainly the court has no authority to invalidate the vote of one precinct and declare one party nominated. I realize that in order to reach this result one would have to overrule a long line of cases. I think they are wrong.
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent.