Court Opinion

ID: 9761907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:59:10.673987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:02.921215
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Pomeroy:
While I joined the Court’s opinion in McKelvey Appeal, 444 Pa. 392, 281 A. 2d 642 (1971), on which the present opinion relies, I do not consider it controlling here, and I therefore respectfully dissent.1
In McKelvey, supra, the Court held that the writing by an elector of a person’s name on the bottom of the *422ballot did not in the circumstances of that case render that ballot capable of identification, and thus violative of the Election Code, §1223, 25 P.S. §3062(a). This same section of the Code, however, dealing in detail with the manner of marking and counting of ballots, expressly provides that a ballot marked “in blue, black or blue-black ink, in fountain pen or ballpoint pen, or black lead pencil or indelible pencil, shall be valid and counted: . . .” When the legislature has, with such specificity, stated what ballot markings shall be valid and counted, it has in effect also stated, in aid of the cherished secrecy of the American ballot, that use of inks or instruments other than those specified is not permissible and that ballots so marked shall be invalid and not counted.
That §1223 is to be read as I have indicated is borne out by the form of official ballot which the legislature itself prescribed by §1003 of the Code, 25 P.S. §2963. The instruction to the voter required to be printed on each ballot contains the following admonition, among others: “Mark ballot only in black lead pencil, indelible pencil or blue, black or blue-black ink, in fountain pen or ballpoint pen. . . (Emphasis supplied.)2 Thus the question here presented is not whether the elector had a purpose to make the ballot identifiable, or whether the red ink did in fact have that effect in this particu*423lar case. Those factors are not relevant if, as T believe, the use of red ink has been interdicted.
While I endorse the desire of the majority to construe the Code liberally in favor of validity of a ballot, there must be rules of the game. As Mr. Justice Roberts observed in his dissenting opinion in Reading Election Recount Case, 410 Pa. 62, 70, 188 A. 2d 254 (1963), “No hardship is [thereby] imposed on the voter. If the voter undertakes to deviate from the requirements prescribed for all, he takes the risk of his failure to comply. The concern is not the possible disenfranchisement of a voter who casts his ballot in a manner not permitted by the Election Code, but rather the preservation of the sanctity of the whole election process by giving effect to only those ballots marked in accordance with the election laws. ...” It is my view that the electors in the ballots here challenged transgressed one of the prescribed rules, though no doubt inadvertently. I would therefore reverse.
Mr. Justice Roberts joins in this dissenting opinion.

 The majority also rely upon Reading Election Recount Case, 410 Pa. 62, 188 A. 2d 254 (1963), which I find difficult to distinguish from the ease at bar. Justice (now Chief Justice) Jones noted a dissent in Reading, and dissenting opinions were filed by *422Mr. Justice Cohen and Mr. Justice Roberts. With due respect to the majority of the Reading court, I cannot help but feel that the case was wrongly decided.

 It is to be noted that §1223 of the Election Code was last amended in 19C3 (Act of August 13, 1963, P. E. 707, §19, 25 P.S. §3063 (Supp. 1971)) and that §1003 of the Code was amended by the same statute, and again in 1968 by the Act of July 16, 1968, P. L. , No. 175, §1. At the times of these amendments the use of ballpoint pens and inks of various colors was already commonplace.