Greenly v. Independent School Dist. No. 316, C0-86-1050
| Decision Date | 28 October 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. C0-86-1050,C0-86-1050 |
| Citation | 395 N.W.2d 86 |
| Parties | Lauren L. GREENLY, Respondent, v. INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT # 316, Respondent, Dale Fuhrman, et al., Appellants. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
Respondent's notice of election contest did not state facts sufficient to apprise the contestee of the grounds of the contest and to invoke the jurisdiction of the court and could not be validated by an amendment filed after the expiration of the statutory period for filing the notice.
Mark T. Groettum, Hibbing, for Lauren L. Greenly.
Independent School Dist. No. 316, pro se.
Jon A. Maturi, Grand Rapids, for Dale Fuhrman, et al.
Considered and decided by NIERENGARTEN, P.J., and WOZNIAK and SEDGWICK, JJ., with oral argument waived.
Dale Fuhrman and Donald Boese were elected as write-in candidates to the school board of Independent School District # 316. Lauren L. Greenly, a voter in the district, contested the election and the district court, Itasca County, invalidated the results of the election following a court trial. Fuhrman and Boese appeal from the judgment of the court and from a subsequent order granting in part and denying in part their motion for amended findings. We reverse.
Independent School District # 316 is located in Itasca County and has its offices in Coleraine, Minnesota. The contested election was held on May 20, 1986. Loren Vogler and Dennis Tennison were incumbent directors of the school district. Their terms were to expire July 1, 1986. Vogler and Tennison were the only candidates who filed for the election.
During the week immediately preceding the election, Boese, a resident of Bovey, Minnesota, was approached regarding a write-in campaign and agreed to serve if elected. He took no action and contacted no one to gain support or votes.
Fuhrman, the mayor of LaPrairie, Minnesota, had contemplated filing as a candidate, but had decided against it. Two days before the election, however, he was contacted by friends and neighbors in LaPrairie and agreed to be a write-in candidate. He contacted 30 to 40 other voters in the district and urged them to spread the word to write in his name. The trial court found that neither Fuhrman nor Boese knew the identity of the other write-in candidate until shortly before the election.
Late in the afternoon of May 19, 1986, Gerald Ruuhela, a school district resident, dropped off several copies of Exhibit 1 at Wallace Stokes' barber shop in Calumet, one of the district precincts. Exhibit 1 is a handwritten document bearing a facsimile of a write-in ballot with the names Dale Fuhrman and Donald Boese written in and an "X" placed in the box preceding each name. Above this is written: "Dist. 316 Board Election Write-in Candidates" and below is written " * Write name in blank Put 'X' in box." (See facsimile of Exhibit 1 in the appendix to this opinion.)
The polls were open from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on May 20. At noon, a voter observed three copies of Exhibit 1 in the voting booth at the Bovey polling place. He did not remove the documents or bring them to anyone else's attention. Another resident of Bovey found two copies of Exhibit 1 in the booth when she voted at around 12:30 or 1:00 p.m. She did not remove them or bring them to anyone's attention. Another voter observed one copy of Exhibit 1 when she voted in Bovey at about 3:00 p.m. She did not remove it or bring it to anyone else's attention.
At about 2:00 p.m., a voter came into the polling place in Bovey to vote and asked the election judge if they had "any of those slips of paper with the names on * * * so that they could have an option to vote." The election judge replied that they did not.
At some time during the afternoon, a voter came into the Bovey polling place and received his ballot from the election judges. He remarked that the ballot had only two names on it and began to inquire whether these were the only two candidates for whom they could vote. Another man who had already voted then took him by the arm and the two began walking outside. One of the election judges testified that they were "acting kind of silly." Another election judge went out and told them to bring the ballot back inside.
At about 3:30 p.m., a voter found a copy of Exhibit 1 in her voting booth in Bovey. Fuhrman identified this voter as one of the supporters he contacted on May 18. The voter told one of the election judges that she had found the sample ballot in the booth but had destroyed it. The Bovey election judges then checked all the booths but found no other copies of Exhibit 1. About the same number of voters had voted at Bovey prior to this incident as voted afterward.
At about 1:15 p.m. in Coleraine, JoAnne Tennison, wife of incumbent Dennis Tennison, found a piece of paper in her voting booth with only the names of the two write-in candidates written on it. She took it with her, but didn't report it to the election judges. She later lost it, but drew a facsimile which was entered in evidence as Exhibit 4. Exhibit 4 depicts a slip of paper with the two names, but nothing else, handwritten on it. (See facsimile of Exhibit 4 in the appendix to this opinion.)
Virginia Peavey, one of the election judges in LaPrairie, received five copies of Exhibit 1 from Gerald Ruuhela at about 9:00 p.m. on May 19, the day before the election. She gave three to neighbors and brought two to the LaPrairie polling place. She placed them on the table in front of her when she arrived at 10:00 a.m. Voters received their ballots from Peavey and the slips of paper were on the table between the registration area and the voting booths.
Peavey used one when she voted and gave the other to her husband when he voted between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. She testified that the slips were turned over at all times and covered with a coffee cup. Both of the other judges, Ilo Underwood and Iola Mostoller, saw the slips and Underwood testified that she saw printing on them. Mostoller turned one over and saw the names of the write-in candidates.
On May 21, 1986, the votes were canvassed. The results were:
Fuhrman ... 398 votes
Boese ..... 343 votes
Tennison .. 314 votes
Vogler .... 235 votes
Fuhrman and Boese were declared the winners.
Of the 708 ballots cast, 199 were cast in Coleraine, 126 in Bovey, and 106 in LaPrairie. Fuhrman and Boese won in Coleraine and LaPrairie by wide margins. They also won in Bovey and all other precincts except Taconite, Pengilly, and Trout Lake, where the incumbents won by wide margins.
On May 27, Greenly served the four candidates and the school superintendent with a notice of contest, which read To: Clerk of District Court
Due to the alleged voting violations that seemed to occur during the recent School Board Election of District # 316, I, Lauren L. Greenly a registered voter in District # 316, wish to contest the results of this election untill [sic] an investigation can be completed.
/s/ Lauren L. Greenly
Greenly was not represented by counsel when he served and filed his notice of contest.
On June 4, the district court caused a notice to respond and a notice of trial to be served on the four candidates and the school district. Fuhrman and Boese filed responsive pleadings. Fuhrman challenged the sufficiency of Greenly's notice of contest in his responsive pleading immediately before trial, and moved to dismiss on this ground. Greenly meanwhile obtained counsel to represent him. Immediately before trial, counsel served and filed a memorandum of law containing a detailed description of the points upon which the contest would be made. The trial court held that this memorandum constituted a permissible amendment of pleadings and denied Fuhrman's motion to dismiss.
The case was tried to the court on June 10, 1986. The district court found that neither Fuhrman nor Boese had anything to do with the preparation and distribution of any of the slips of paper bearing their names, and knew nothing of and did not authorize any violations of law.
The trial court concluded, however, that the issuance and circulation of Exhibit 1 constituted a serious and material violation of law because it did not bear on its face the name and address of the persons causing it to be circulated, in violation of Minn.Stat. Sec. 210A.03 (1984), and because it was present in the voting booths in Bovey in violation of Minn.Stat. Sec. 123.32, subd. 27(a) and (c). The court concluded that the issuance and circulation of Exhibit 1 tended to influence voting, probably affected the outcome of the election in the Bovey and LaPrairie precincts, and may have affected the outcome of the entire election.
The court concluded that the presence of Exhibit 4, a slip of paper with merely two handwritten names thereon in a voting booth in Coleraine, was a violation of law for the same reasons. The court concluded that this violation would have been trivial had it not occurred in conjunction with the violations with respect to Exhibit 1.
The court concluded that, while the evidence showed no fraudulent intent to unlawfully affect the outcome of the election, "the totality of the circumstances surrounding the violations * * * seriously undermined the integrity of the election process and the confidence of the electorate."
The court declared the results of the election and the election itself to be null and void.
1. Did the trial court abuse its discretion by allowing the contestant to amend his notice of contest immediately before trial?
2. Did the trial court abuse its discretion in admitting testimony regarding the election's reputation in the community?
3. Did the trial court clearly err in finding that the presence in the voting booths of slips of paper in the form of sample ballots with the names of write-in candidates on them "tend[ed] to influence voting" under Minn.Stat. Sec. 210A.03 (1984), or were "designed to influence a voter" under Minn.Stat. Sec. 123.32,...
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