Court Opinion

ID: 9696337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:45:18.294677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:21.461111
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Cohen,
October 25, 1965:
I concur in the result and join in the opinion of the majority. Therefore, under ordinary circumstances I would have no occasion to say anything further. Since, however, the dissent misconstrues the implications of the Altoona case, I am impelled to make a further observation.
The record in the Altoona case clearly reveals that the withdrawal was filed beyond the permitted limitation which the writer of the majority in Altoona (being the author of the dissent here in Perles) sought to justify by a footnote indicating that since no objection *406was imposed to the late withdrawal that issue was no concern to us and not before our Court.
I pointed out in my dissent in Altoona, that the County Board of Elections which permitted the late withdrawal does not sit as a quasi-judicial body adjudicating contending forces as it wishes, but rather as an executive agency to carry out legislative mandates. Its duties are ministerial only. Shroyer v. Thomas, 368 Pa. 70, 81 A. 2d 435 (1951). Hence, even though no objection was made to the late withdrawal, neither the County Board of Elections nor our Court should have permitted it since to so do was a patent violation of the Election Code. The vacancy created by the improperly permitted late withdrawal was then used by the majority in Altoona as the excuse and justification to further violate the Code by permitting a late substitution. Since the Court in Altoona did permit a late substitution after a late withdrawal, I cannot see how we can now do otherwise then to permit a timely substitution after a timely withdrawal.