Court Opinion

ID: 9610007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:35:27.101745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:55.749289
License: Public Domain

KAUGER, Justice,
concurring specially:
I concur in all parts of the majority opinion, but I write to express the following views.
A.
For the reasons expressed by Summers, J. in the concurring in part dissenting in part opinion in Henderson v. Maley, 806 P.2d 626 (Okla.1991), in which I joined, I believe that a recount should be granted. However, the question of a recount is not before us — even if it were — a recount would be unavailable under the majority’s teaching in Henderson.
B.
It should also be noted that even if we applied what the majority opinion refers to as the “dicta” in Keltch v. Alfalfa County Election Bd., 737 P.2d 908, 910 (Okla.1987), we would not reach a different result.1
*621C.
I agree with many of the public policy pronouncements concerning the duty of election officials expressed by Chief Justice Opala in his dissent, and I am committed to the sanctity of a free and fair election process. However, I cannot agree with his premise that we can transmogrify alleged irregularities — (which do not change the outcome of the election) — into fraud or dishonesty by election officials when neither allegations nor evidence of fraud, corruption or dishonesty have been put forward.

. In Keltch v. Alfalfa County Election Bd., 737 P.2d 908, 910 (Okla.1987), we stated:
"In the absence of evidence that more votes were cast than there were supporting sugna-tures on the poll books, the petitioner’s argument that four votes should be discounted, thus voiding the results of the election, is not persuasive.” (Emphasis in text.)
Here, it was asserted that 66 more votes were cast than there were signatures on the poll *621book. The petitioner won the election by a margin of 157 votes. Eighty-seven of the votes were discarded because they were not cast by registered voters. Two votes were discarded because a voter cast a ballot twice. If the 66 ballots were discarded, the petitioner would still win by 2 votes.