Lower Terrebonne Refining & Manufacturing Co. v. Police Jury

Citations

• 115 La. 1020
• 40 So. 443
• 1906 La. LEXIS 450

Syllabus

<p>1. Elections — Notice.</p> <p>Where the official journal of the parish is published only every Saturday, a statute requiring that a notice of election “shall be published for 30 days in the official journal of the parish” is complied with if the notice is published in the official journal five consecutive Saturdays, and the-election is held 32 days after the first publication.</p> <p>2. Same — Vote—Validity.</p> <p>A vote cast before the time for the opening of the poll has arrived, and before any of the commissioners of election have arrived, is no vote; and the courts are powerless to infuse any legal life into it, however disposed they may be, in the absence of fraud, to give effect to elections where possible.</p> <p>3. Same — Opening Polls by Bystandees.</p> <p>Bystanders who take it upon themselves to open the poll before the hour fixed by law for opening the poll has arrived cannot be said to be de facto commissioners. This is on the principle that there cannot be an officer de facto until there is a corresponding office in existence. Until the hour comes for the election to be held, there cannot be said to be an election.</p> <p>4. Same — De Facto Oommissionees.</p> <p>But, even if bystanders so acting before the hour for the opening of the poll could be held to be de facto commissioners in a case where the voter had been induced by appearances to believe that they had authority to receive his vote, they cannot be so held in the case of a voter who himself had appointed the commissioners, and, moreover, had actual knowledge of who the regular commissioners were.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>