Court Opinion

ID: 9697721
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:27:36.814299+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:34.862667
License: Public Domain

Concurring and dissenting opinion by
Judge SMITH-RIBNER.
I concur with the Majority’s decision to allow the five paper ballots for Harold J. Kirschner that contained a sticker with his name inserted in the “District Magistrate” block instead of the “Supervisor” block and the five paper ballots for Samuel L. Dayhoff where the voters misspelled his surname or omitted his first name. I disagree, however, with the Majority’s decision to disallow the eleven paper ballots for Dayhoff and the eight paper ballots for Kirschner simply because the voters failed to blacken the oval provided on the ballot next to the line where the candidates’ names were written.
There is no dispute that the Adams County Board of Elections manually counted the write-in ballots. Likewise, there is no dispute that testimony from the Director of Elections and Voter Registrations, Monica Dutko, established that blackening of the oval made no difference in terms of registering the votes for a write-in slot and that a voter’s failure to blacken the oval had no adverse affect on the election process or the ability of election officials to accurately count, compute and return the election results.
Section 1112-A(b) of the Pennsylvania Election Code, Act of June 3, 1937, P.L. 1333, as amended, added by Section 4 of the Act of July 11, 1980, P.L. 600, 25 P.S. § 3031.12(b), provides in relevant part:
In an election district which uses an electronic voting system which utilizes paper ballots or ballot cards to register the votes, the following procedures will be applicable for the conduct of the election at the election district:
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(2) At primary elections, the voter shall vote for the candidates of his choice for nomination, according to the number of persons to be voted for by him, for each office by making a cross (X) or check (/) mark or by making a punch or mark sense mark [sic] in the square opposite the name of the candidate, or ... write the identification of the office in question and the name of any person not already printed on the ballot for that office, and such mark and written insertion shall count as a vote for that person for such office.
*1014Dutko testified that Adams County uses automated tabulating equipment to tabulate paper votes and that the automated system was not programmed to read or register any votes by reading or recognizing a blackened oval with regard to a ballot position that did not contain a ballot candidate. The trial court acknowledged as much, and because the challenged write-in votes for Dayhoff and Kirsehner were not registered, tabulated or recorded by electronic means, I conclude that Section 1112-A(b) of the Pennsylvania Election Code clearly applies to this case.
Once the voters wrote in the names of Dayhoff or Kirsehner, their votes should have been counted irrespective of the voters’ failure to blacken the oval beside the candidates’ names. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Appeal of McCracken, 370 Pa. 562, 88 A.2d 787 (1952), held without reservation that where a voter’s intent is found, such intent should not be defeated. In affirming the elections board decision to count write-in ballots for a candidate whose name was not written in full, the Supreme Court reasoned that nothing can be more vital toward accomplishing an honest and just selection than ascertaining the intention of the voter.
Here, the intention of the nineteen voters cannot be clearer: eleven of them intended to vote for Dayhoff by writing his name on the ballot and eight of them intended to vote for Kirsehner by writing his name on the ballot. These ballots were then counted manually, and the Director of Elections confirmed that the voters’ failure to blacken the oval beside the candidates’ names made no difference in registering their votes. This evidence demonstrates the voters’ intent, and it also demonstrates that the election officials had no difficulty in ascertaining that intent. Yet despite this clear and unequivocal evidence, the Majority has chosen to disallow the nineteen write-in paper ballots on a mere technicality and to disenfranchise those nineteen voters who sought to participate in the democratic process. The Majority’s decision is fundamentally at odds with the standard that the Supreme Court enunciated in Appeal of McCracken. Thus my dissent.