Hall v. Reid

• Decision Date: 11 October 1957
• Citation: 305 S.W.2d 923
• Parties: Darrell HALL, as Clerk of the Pulaski County Court and Meriel D. Harris, Appellants, v. Thomas H. REID, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 923

305 S.W.2d 923

Darrell HALL, as Clerk of the Pulaski County Court and Meriel D. Harris, Appellants, v. Thomas H. REID, Appellee.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Oct. 11, 1957.

C. Homer Neikirk, Fritz Krueger, Somerset, for appellants.

V. O. Blackburn, Somerset, for appellee.

CURREN, Commissioner.

In an action by an opposing candidate for the office, against Meriel D. Harris and the county court clerk of Pulaski County, judgment was entered enjoining the clerk from printing Harris' name on the ballots for the coming regular election as a candidate for the office of police judge of the city of Somerset. Harris and the clerk have appealed.

Harris was proposed as a candidate by a nominating petition under KRS 118.080, which was signed by 20 persons, the number required by the statute. However, only 18 of the signers were registered voters, and the lower court held the petition invalid on the ground that the statute requires the petitioners to be registered voters. The appellants maintain that the statute does not so require.

The nominating petition was not filed until after the commencement of the period preceding the election during which registration is not permitted (see KRS 117. 620), so the signers who were not registered will not be able to register before the election. The qualifications of the petitioners are to be judged as of the day the petition was filed with the county court clerk. Stieritz v. Kaufman, 314 Ky. 10, 234 S.W.2d 145.

The statute, KRS 118.080, requires that the petitioners must state that they 'desire, and are legally qualified, to vote for the candidate' whose nomination they propose.

The appellants rely upon such cases as Meffert v. Brown, 132 Ky. 201, 116 S.W. 779; City of Covington v. Miller, 266 Ky. 198, 98 S.W.2d 293; Branstetter v. Heater, 269 Ky. 844, 108 S.W.2d 1040; and Stieritz v. Kaufman, 314 Ky. 10, 234 S.W.2d 10. In the latter three cases it was held that where a statute required that a petition calling for an election on a public question be signed by a designated number of 'voters,' or 'legal voters,' or 'qualified voters' it was not necessary that the signers be registered voters. In the Meffert case it was held that a nonregistered voter was qualified to hold a public office notwithstanding that one of the statutory qualifications for the office was that the person be a 'qualified voter.'

We do not consider these cases to be controlling. It was stated in the Covington case that the word 'voters' does not necessarily mean registered voters, and that the meaning of this or a similar term depends upon the connection in which used. In the Branstetter case it was said that the term would not be construed to mean registered voters 'in the absence of some clear or definite language in the statute indicating that such was the legislative...