Court Opinion

ID: 9789408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:35:59.366923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:22.340992
License: Public Domain

GRODIN, J., Concurring.
In my concurring opinion in Peterson v. City of San Diego (1983) 34 Cal.3d 225, 231 [193 Cal.Rptr. 533, 666 P.2d 975], I expressed concern, based upon the state constitutional mandate that “voting shall be secret,” with forms of election which permit persons other than the voter to observe the ballot as it is cast. The problem inherent in such systems, I suggested, “is not simply one of purchasing votes, though a market in that commodity is far more likely if the buyer can see what he is getting. The problem includes the potential for more subtle forms of coercion. . . . [I]t is inevitable that political and special interest groups will be tempted to ‘assist’ voters in casting their ballots, perhaps at organizational parties at which the marking and mailing of ballots constitute a group activity.” (Id., at p. 232.)
This case presents a vivid illustration of the problem I described. In a local election, with a small and almost equally divided electorate, a number of ballots three times greater than the margin of ballots counted were cast by absentee voters in the presence of or with the assistance of campaign partisans, one of whom was actually a candidate, and under circumstances bound to give rise to the suspicion if not the actuality of coercion.
The state Constitution contemplates that absentee voting will occur, and that the Legislature will have broad power over its regulation (see Peterson *414v. City of San Diego, supra, 34 Cal.3d at pp. 228-229). Certainly we could not properly say that the constitutional demand for secrecy in voting is violated every time an absentee voter obtains physical assistance in filling out his ballot; some voters require such assistance in order to be able to vote. The trial court found that was in fact the situation in the case of voters who were so assisted in this case, and I agree with the majority that there was sufficient evidence to support those findings. For these reasons I concur. I strongly suggest, however, that there is a need in this arena for prophylactic rules which the Legislature is in the best position to provide.