Carroll v. Green
| Decision Date | 25 May 1897 |
| Docket Number | 17,801 |
| Citation | 47 N.E. 223,148 Ind. 362 |
| Parties | Carroll v. Green |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied Sept. 23, 1897.
From the Martin Circuit Court.
Reversed.
A. J Padgett and R. L. Ross, for appellant.
H. Q Houghton, James B. Marshall and Hiram McCormick, for appellee.
The appellant contested the election of the appellee to the office of township trustee of Lost River township in Martin county, both parties being opposing candidates for that office at the general election of November 6, 1894.
The board of commissioners before whom the proceedings were begun sustained a demurrer to the contestor's petition or statement of grounds of contest, refused to allow him to amend it, and rendered judgment against him, from which he appealed to the circuit court. A trial of the contest there resulted in a finding and judgment against the contestant, the appellant, over his motion for a new trial.
The error assigned calls in question the action of the court in overruling the motion for a new trial, and the questions involved in that ruling are the only questions presented by this appeal. During the trial the court refused to allow the appellant to prove that, on the night before the primary election at which appellee was nominated for said office, he went to the house of one John D. Powell, a legal voter in said township, and then and there gave him $ 2.00 to procure and purchase his vote for appellee at said primary election.
The court also refused to allow the appellant to prove by James Philips that, on the day of said general election whereat said parties were opposing candidates for said office of township trustee for said township, to-wit: on November 6, 1894, the contestee gave said witness three dollars to vote for the said contestee at said election.
The ground of contest stated, under which this evidence was offered, is "that the contestee is ineligible to said office."
The second ground for a contest of an election as provided by the statute is: "When the contestee was ineligible." Section 6312, Burns' R. S. 1894 (4756, R. S. 1881).
Appellee's counsel seek to justify the ruling of the court on the ground that sections 1 and 2 of the act approved March 9, 1889, both require a conviction of the offense defined in each, before it can operate to disqualify or render ineligible a candidate for office. Sections 2327, 2328, Burns' R. S. 1894 (Acts 1889, p. 267).
This court is not agreed at present as to the proper construction to be placed on said section of the statute. But there is a constitutional provision affecting one of the questions involved in this appeal about which we are agreed. The sixth section of article 2, of the state constitution provides that: "Every person shall be disqualified for holding office during the term for which he may have been elected, who shall have given or offered a bribe, threat, or reward to secure his election." Section 87, Burns' R. S. 1894 (87, R. S. 1881). But it is ineligibility that is made the ground of contest by the statute, and that is the ground stated by the contestant in this case. Soule's Synonyms makes the word "ineligible" synonymous with the word "disqualified." The first definition of the word "ineligible" by Webster is: "Not eligible; not qualified to be chosen to an office." The term disqualified, therefore, as used in the constitutional provision just quoted, means the same thing that the word ineligible means, as used in the statute authorizing a contest.
The term "eligible," as applied to candidates for office, means capable of being chosen; the subject of selection or choice; also implying competency to hold the office if chosen....
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