State ex rel. Peters v. Superior Court

Citations

• 70 Wash. 662
• 127 P. 310
• 1912 Wash. LEXIS 1103

Syllabus

<p>Elections — Nominations—Actions to Restrain Auditor — Parties Plaintiff. Under the express provisions of the primary election law, any citizen of the county may maintain an action to restrain the county auditor from illegally placing upon the general election ballot the names of candidates as nominees of a political party who had not been legally nominated by such party.</p> <p>Elections — Nominations—Convention— Definition — Mass Convention Outside County — Leqality. Under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 4794, defining a convention as an “organized assemblage of the electors or delegates representing a party or a principle,” and Id., § 4830, requiring political parties which cast less than ten per cent at the last preceding election to nominate candidates at a convention, county nominees of the progressive party, which cast no votes at the last election, are not named at a “convention,” and are therefore not entitled to have their names placed on the general election ballot, where it appears that in K. county, a party primary election was held in but seven out of the thirty-one voting preeincts to elect one delegate in each precinct to a state convention which had been called for September 10th, and one delegate to a county convention, that no notice of a county convention was given, but that, during a recess at the state convention held in another county, the five delegates elected to the county convention, with 25 to 40 others present from K. county, meeting as a convention of assembled electors of K. county, nominated progressive party candidates for county offices, without any pretense of holding a county convention in obedience to the invitation to elect delegates at the party primary, the proceedings showing that a mass convention only was held; since such a popular or mass convention, held outside of the county without notice is not fairly representative, would open the door to fraud, and is contrary to the spirit of the direct primary law designed to give every oppo