Court Opinion

ID: 9744054
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:52:39.3564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:46.439453
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HOWERTON, dissenting: I dissent because I believe that the circuit court should have granted Willeford’s motion to*dismiss petitioner’s second amended petition. That petition alleged: Alvina Foehner’s absentee vote was not counted; it was not counted because the election judges thought she was dead; she was alive; and she voted for petitioner, making petitioner the winner by one vote. The motion to dismiss agreed with the factual allegations, but disagreed with the conclusion and said that Foehner’s vote should not have been counted in any event because she failed to comply "with the statutory requirements for her vote to count. To support that allegation, Willeford attached Foehner’s deposition. Petitioner neither denied nor countered the motion and affidavit. The Historical and Practice Notes to section 2 — 619 of the Code of Civil Procedure say that “[t]he purpose of this section is primarily that of affording a means of obtaining at the outset of a case a summary disposition of issues of law or of easily proved issues of fact ***. This amounts to a summary judgment procedure ***.” Ill. Ann. Stat., ch. 110, par. 2 — 619, Historical and Practice Notes, at 662 (Smith-Hurd 1983). Here, the motion to dismiss did not contest the essential allegations of the complaint; rather, it admitted the petition, but in effect said, “So what? Her vote could not have been counted anyway because she voted improperly.” The factual allegations of the motion to dismiss were never controverted. Therefore, the circuit court should have taken them to be true and dismissed the petition. We should be reluctant to assert judicial power over elections. There must be some allegation justifying judicial assertion of power over the election process before courts should intervene and proceed to recount the ballots. Here, the uncontroverted allegations showed that the Foehner vote should not have been counted irrespective of petitioner’s allegations. That left no justification for continued judicial assertion of power over this election. Recognizing that the majority is composed of judges who possess great skill and knowledge, nevertheless I dissent, perhaps with temerity, but most certainly with respect.