Supper v. Stauss

Citations

• 39 Pa. Super. 388
• 1909 Pa. Super. LEXIS 498

Syllabus

<p>Election law — Primary election — Qualification of voter — Party ballot— Act of February 17, 1906, P. L. 36.</p> <p>1. Where a citizen at a general election votes the straight ticket of a particular party, he will not be entitled, if challenged, at the next succeeding primary election to receive a ballot of another party, although on the ballot which he voted at the general election were the names of the majority of the candidates of the party for whose ballot he asks at the primary election.</p> <p>2. A candidate may be voted for by more than one party but he does not thereby lose his relation to a party from the mere fact that his name appears in a column of another party.</p> <p>3. The act intends that each candidate is to be credited with each vote cast in his favor, no matter on what ticket, to the end that it may be ascertained whether or not he has received a plurality of votes; but it is equally important that a political party or organized body of electors that has made a nomination is entitled to have an accurate computation made of the number of votes cast in its name, so that its rights with respect to the making of nominations in the future may be ascertained.</p> <p>4. A political party is defined as a company or number of persons ranged on one side, or united in opinion or design in opposition to others in the community; those who favor orare united to promote certain views or opinions.</p> <p>5. To entitle one to membership in a party he must not only have voted for a majority of the persons who were candidates of that party in the preceding election, but he must have voted for such persons as the candidates of the party to which he claims affiliation; that is, if he voted in a party column, he must have voted for them in the column designated for that party and not in some other party column.</p>