Court Opinion

ID: 9672302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:52:18.843583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:15.296087
License: Public Domain

COLER, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority opinion insofar as it would reverse the holding of the trial court disenfranchising the voters of the *574two precincts but I would further remand with directions that the ballots themselves should have been counted.
I concur with Justice Wollman wherein, as he points out, SDCL 12-21-1 is the controlling provision as to the purpose to be served by recount. I would add, however, that SDCL 12-20-35, as well as the numerous decisions of this court, including McMahon v. Crockett, 1899, 12 S.D. 11, 80 N.W. 136; Tschetter v. Ray, 1912, 28 S.D. 604, 134 N.W. 796 and Althen v. Fowler, 1915, 35 S.D. 363, 152 N.W. 337, clearly mandate that the ballots are to be received in evidence. Even in Howser v. Pepper, 1899, 8 N.D. 484, 79 N.W. 1018, cited by the majority opinion in support of its position, all of the challenged ballots were in evidence and it was only in those precincts where that court found the ballots tainted and, therefore, not the best evidence, that it used the secondary evidence, the official, canvass, to determine the result of the election in those precincts.
SDCL 12-20-20 and 12-20-21 presume, as do SDCL 12-20-32, 12-20-34 and 12-21-24, compliance by election officials sworn to uphold those laws, so that the voted ballots will be placed in ballot boxes which are sealed and delivered to the person in charge of the election. There was an irregularity in how these ballots were handled in precincts 3-4 and 10-2 but the fault was not found to. be criminal in nature by the trial court. The county auditor is only required “to keep the ballot boxes * * * in the same condition as when received”, SDCL 12-20-32, and is not, as was the clerk of courts, who formerly had the duty of possession of the ballot boxes, required specifically to place them in a vault or other place inaccessible to anyone but an authorized person. SDCL 12-20-33, repealed by Ch. 118, § 200, S.L.1974.
The ballots have never been reviewed to ascertain whether or not they were tampered with and that determination should be made. The majority opinion notes that the trial court found that there is not one “scintilla of evidence of bad faith, fraud or misdoing of a criminal nature involved here.” That finding can only be supported if the ballots themselves are reviewed. As stated by this court in Tschetter v. Ray, supra:
“While the evidence showing where and how the boxes and envelopes had been cared for since election showed *575lack of that proper care that should be given such boxes and envelopes, yet we believe the trial court was fully justified in receiving such exhibits for the purpose of ascertaining what these exhibits themselves would tend to prove.” 28 S.D. at 607, 134 N.W. at 797.
In Althen v. Fowler, supra, following the precedent established in Tschetter v. Ray, supra, this court overruled the trial court and ordered the ballots to be received in evidence because:
“* * * the ends of justice demanded that it [the trial court] receive in evidence and open the several boxes, leaving the matter of the counting of the ballots to be determined thereafter when properly presented to such court.” 35 S.D. at 367, 152 N.W. at 337.
I submit that these decisions, coupled 'with SDCL 12-20-35 and 12-21-1, require a review of the ballots, whether or not they were boxed and to this extent, though it might not change the result, I dissent from the majority opinion.