Court Opinion

ID: 9760969
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:26:53.590518+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:19.377911
License: Public Domain

DRAUGHN, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with my fellow justices in their conclusion but feel that some additional elaboration is needed to articulate my position in this ballot-access dispute.
It is elementary that a state has the power to draft and enforce laws governing the election of its officials. Fundamental to that function is the power to determine the requirements necessary for a prospective candidate to get his or her name placed on the ballot. These requirements for access to the ballot cannot be arbitrary and unreasonable. They cannot violate the fundamental constitutional rights of the prospective candidates and they must be uniformly applied to all candidates. We are called on this case to arbitrate between two competing legal principles: (1) the law’s general inclination toward allowing prospective candidates to be placed on the ballot if they are qualified, without regard to hypertechnical details; and (2) the strict enforcement of a state’s election laws. In this case I opt in favor of the latter principle and find that the statute places the responsibility for complying with its mandatory terms strictly on the prospective candidate.
In addition to requiring two hundred fifty (250) signatures of registered voters on the petition, the Election Code requires certain enumerated information in order for each signature to be valid. Attesting toi the seriousness of these requirements, the Election Code also requires that an affidavit must accompany the signatures. In it, the circulator of the petition must swear that he or she has “verified each signer’s registration status,” and state under oath that he or she “believes each signature to be genuine and the corresponding information to be correct.” Tex.Elec.Code Ann. § 141.065(a)(3) and (4) (Vernon 1986).
In the case before us, the circulator and the one who executed affidavits attached to the petitions was primarily the would-be candidate Brady. By doing so she swore to the verification and her belief in the correctness of the information contained in the petition. Sec. 141.064(4) of the Election Code also provides that “before the petition is filed, [the circulator must] verify each signer’s registration status and ascertain that each registration number entered on the petition is correct.”
It appears clear to me that candidate Brady did not comply with the provisions of the Election Code in regard to verifying the registration status of the signers on her petition and in regard to the correctness of the information contained thereon. If the legislature saw fit to require not only that certain information be supplied but that it be supported by affidavit, I am hard pressed to accept the defense of Ms. Brady that the information is not really important if there are enough kernels of information supplied so as to enable her opponents or others to search the records and verify its correctness. The fact that others may ultimately be able to verify the signer’s registration status is not the litmus test for validity of the signature. It does not excuse the applicant from providing the specific information required by the Election Code. Shields v. Upham, 597 S.W.2d 502, 504 (Tex.Civ.App. — El Paso 1980, no writ).
To take Ms. Brady’s approach would trivialize the importance of the information required and the seriousness of the oath mandated by the legislature. I simply cannot accept this interpretation as valid because it implies that the legislature performed a meaningless act by requiring certain information on the supporting petitions and requiring that the person circulating the petition to swear under oath that the registration status of the signer has been verified and that each registration number *957entered on the petition is correct. I am convinced that the statutorily mandated information (with extremely rare exceptions) is critical to the validity of the petition. I am also convinced, that the legislature passed these provisions of the Election Code intending that the burden and responsibility for the completion and correctness of the petitions should rest solely on the shoulders of the potential candidate.
To become a candidate is a privilege, not a right. And if a person wants to exercise that privilege, he or she has the responsibility to see that the petitions legally required for his or her candidacy are properly signed and that accompanying information is correct before it is verified under oath and filed with the proper party authorities for certification to be placed on the primary ballot. To hold otherwise makes a hollow mockery out of the election law and encourages would-be candidates to selectively, or negligently, ignore specific statutory provisions of the Election Code and official election forms based thereon. It also allows the careless or unconcerned candidate to place the responsibility and burden of determining the validity of his or her facially defective petitions on someone else.
In reaching my conclusions, I am not unmindful of the general proposition that, all things being equal, courts should lean in favor of placing potential candidates on the ballot. Extreme hypertechnicalities in ballot-access statutes should not so blind us that we bar potential candidates who are otherwise qualified. However, I do not find that to be the case here. The Election Code does not place an undue or harsh burden on the potential judicial candidate and I find it clear by its terms. As indicated by our previous decisions, there is room for common-sense interpretations of the statute to dispense with harsh reliance on minor facial errors in the petitions. Bacon v. Harris County Republican Executive Comm., 743 S.W.2d 369 (Tex.App.— Houston [14th Dist.] 1988, no writ). Where a minor facial error, readily verifiable, occurs, I would find the signature is acceptable if the remainder of the information is correct. I would not find the omission of the city or the zip code fatal to the signature so long as one or the other was contained thereon. But where there is a pattern of serious errors as here and these errors are incorrectly sworn to as valid I find it brings into question the integrity of the statutory process and we should not judicially approve such omissions or errors. Nor should opposing candidates and other officials be required to search the records to fill in the statutory gaps for the would-be candidate.
In conclusion, I find that it is solely the responsibility of the candidate to insure that at least 250 or more persons signing his or her petition are legally registered voters in the concerned county or counties and the statutorily mandated information accompanying them is facially complete and internally correct. If such is not the case, the candidate’s name should not be certified to be on the primary ballot and, if certified, mandamus will lie to direct the exclusion of that candidate’s name from the ballot.
With this elaboration, I concur in the majority opinion that the mandamus should be granted in this matter and that writ issue to exclude the name of Elaine Brady from the 1990 Democratic Primary Election Ballot as a candidate for the position of Justice for the First District Court of Appeals, Place One.