Court Opinion

ID: 9864968
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:18:33.318027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:24.178750
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Adams
dissenting.
The originals of all of the primary nomination petitions that were held to be invalid, were exhibited to this court; they contained the requisite number of genuine signatures of qualified electors, and in form and substance complied with C. L. 1921, section 7536, except that it is claimed, and it is held by the court in this proceeding, that petitioners should have signed their names twice, once on the petition and again on the affidavit, both of which were combined on the same page. I respectfully disagree with the opinion. I think that when *52the petitioning electors signed their names once and swore to the things required by statute, it was as good as if they had signed their names twice or a dozen times on the same page.
If there were a question of fraudulent signatures, or of voters not qualified, the situation would be different, but the trial court found that the petitioning electors acted in good faith and with honesty of purpose. This is not contradicted, and this court has repeatedly held that it is controlled by the rulings of trial courts as to matters of fact. The notary’s certificate in each petition contains all that the statute requires as to the acknowledgment and oath of the signers. His certificate stands unimpeached. I do not see what more could have been done to establish its verity.
It frequently happens that the makers of instruments written on more than one page, like wills and other important documents, sign their names on the margin of each page, except the final sheet, which is subscribed by the maker at the end of the writing. Each page is thus identified properly, and substitution of pages and consequent fraud is prevented. No doubt this is one of the purposes of the provision in section 7536, which has never been construed by this court before, and which requires, among other things, that the affidavit of the subscribing electors shall be endorsed on the sheet on which their names shall be signed, but nowhere does the legislature seem to have called for the unnecessary duplication referred to; i. e., repetition of signatures of the same parties on the same sheet; at least, it is not mentioned in the Session Laws.
Conceding the force of the divided opinion of this court in Cowie v. Means, 39 Colo. 1, 88 Pac. 485, as a precedent in construing C. L. 1921, section 7581, under the 1891 law, the one there under observation, and granting its partial ■similarity to C. L. section 7536, passed in 1910, after the decision in the Cowie case, nevertheless, there having been no previous interpretation of section 7536 before *53this case came up, I think that we should avail ourselves of the opportunity to give it a natural construction, without fettering ourselves to ancient error. No property rights or titles are predicated on that decision, and so the common argument ixx favor of the rule of stare decisis does not apply. Even if it did, in a sxxit which has for its only object the compelling of thousands of voters to write the names of their choice of candidates for precinct committeemen and committee women on their ballots with pen and ink, if they vote for them at all, ixxstead of having the names printed on the ballots for the convenience of the electors and the election officials — in such a case I think we ought to apply our own reasoning, rather than that of a divided court interpreting another statute twenty years ago.
The unreported decision in Robinson v. People, known as the Moffat Tunnel case, referred to in the majority opinion here, appears to consist of a court order, with no ground of decisioxx given; many grounds of error were alleged, but whether or not the point involved in this matter was a reason for the decision there, seems to rest solely upon traditioxx; there were two sheets to each petition in that case, and no pretense was made to have the rejected signatures and affidavits on the same page, as they were in this case.
It is a well-known and gexxerally coxxceded fact that elections are for the sole purpose of giving expression to the will of the electorate. For this reason, the laws relating to the drafting and filing of nomination certificates should be liberally construed for such purpose, without violating any express statutory provisions, particularly when the element of fraud is wholly lacking, as it is in this case.
To summarize, we have this anomaly in the Colorado law: A man or woman can deed all that he or she owns, with one signature and acknowledgment, without raising a prima facie suspicion of fraud or deceit upon his or her part, or upon the part of the acknowledging officer; in fact, under certain conditions, no acknowledgment at all *54is necessary (C. L. 1921, section 4905); an oath upon which a man’s life may depend, may be taken in court without being subscribed; but when the purpose is only for the simple matter of having names of certain candidates printed on a ballot, to save the time and labor of the voters and election officials at a primary election, it is necessary, under the court’s ruling, when the petition is on only one sheet, for the petitioning elector to sign hi s' or her name twice on the same page with his petition and affidavit, or else both such petition and the jurat of the officer taking the oath will be discredited, even though the court holds that the petition is made in good faith. A statute should not be construed so as to give it an absurd meaning, but I fear that in this case the reasoning employed by the court has resulted in holding that the legislature, merely by its silence, has loudly proclaimed a thing that it would not have thought of saying if it had , used its voice. I have the highest regard for my learned associates, and the utmost respect for their views; I know that they have interpreted the law as they believe it to be, but I regret that I am unable to agree with them, and I venture to hope that a way may be eventually found leading to a more rational construction of this law, in favor of the qualified electors of the state.
I respectfully dissent for the above reasons.