State ex rel. Harkins v. Roundtree

Citations

• 28 Wash. 669
• 69 P. 404
• 1902 Wash. LEXIS 533

Syllabus

<p>ELECTIONS-PASTING NAMES ON BALLOTS-FAILURE TO'MABK BALLOT -LEGALITY OF VOTE.</p> <p>Where there was but one set of candidates to be voted for upon the official ballot used in a general election, and the voter pasted the name of another person over that of one of the candidates and cast his ballot without making an X after the names of any of the candidates, his vote should be counted, since Bah Code, § 1376, provides that a ballot is not void, unless it is impossible to determine the elector’s choice; Id., § 1403, provides that no ticket shall be lost for want of form, if the board of judges can determine to their satisfaction the person voted for and the office intended; and Id., § 1362, provides that “nothing in this chapter [relating to elections] shall prevent any voter from writing or pasting on his ballot the name of any person for whom he desires to vote for any office, and such vote shall he counted the same as if printed upon the ballot and marked by tbe voter.”</p> <p>SAME-STATUTES-REPEAL.</p> <p>Bal. Code, § 1362, passed in 1890, and providing that where a name is pasted on a ballot, the vote shall he counted the same as if printed upon the ballot and marked by the voter, was not repealed by Id., § 1370, passed in 1895, which declares, in providing for the method of marking ballots, that any elector may paste over any other name the name of any person for whom he may wish to vote, since the act of 1895 was merely amendatory of existing statutes and did not undertake to supersede the provisions of the old law, except in the matter of marking the ballots with an X after, instead of before, the names of candidates.</p> <p>SAME-IDENTIFICATION MARKS.</p> <p>Neither the placing of a paster upon an official ballot, as allowed by law governing elections, nor the failure to mark the ballot with an X, when hut one set of candidates is being voted for, can be beld to bfe a violation of Bal. Code, § 1380, which prohibits an elector’s placing any mark upon his ball