Meriwether v. Stanfield, 4421.
| Decision Date | 03 October 1946 |
| Docket Number | No. 4421.,4421. |
| Citation | 196 S.W.2d 704 |
| Parties | MERIWETHER v. STANFIELD. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Orange County; Owen Lord, Special Judge.
Election contest by L. G. Stanfield against C. Hobson Meriwether. From a judgment in favor of the contestant, the contestee appeals.
Judgment affirmed.
Walter C. Linden, Jr., of Orange, for appellant.
K. W. Stephenson, of Orange, and Cecil & Keith, of Beaumont, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the district court of Orange county in an election contest.
In the runoff primary election held in Orange county August 24, 1946, the appellant, Meriwether, was certified by the County Democratic Committee as the successful candidate for the democratic nomination for sheriff of Orange county over the appellee, Stanfield, by a vote of 3,522 to 3,411. Stanfield, who was then and is now the sheriff of Orange county, filed his petition to contest the election in the district court and after the appellant had answered, filed an amended petition. The amended petition was filed after the statutory time had expired for the appellee to file a contest of the election.
From the record, the appellee Stanfield received 3,246 votes in all of the election boxes except No. 1 and in the same boxes Meriwether received 3,200. After hearing the testimony as to probable fraud in counting of the ballots in box No. 1, the trial judge decided to open ballot box No. 1 and count the ballots. Upon doing so, he found the correct count of ballots therein to be Stanfield 230 instead of 165 as counted and returned, and Meriwether 253 instead of 322 as counted and returned, making a total vote as found by the trial judge: Stanfield 3,476 and Meriwether 3,453. He thereupon entered judgment for Stanfield, the contestant, and appellee here, declaring him to be the lawful nominee of the democratic party of Orange county, Texas, for the office of sheriff of Orange county. From this judgment the appellant has duly perfected his appeal. The cause has been duly advanced for submission on the docket of this court and was submitted on the 2nd day of October, 1946.
By his first point, the appellant assigns error to the action of the trial court in overruling a number of special exceptions to the appellee's original petition. We consider this of no moment since the case was tried on the appellee's amended petition. He also urges exceptions as applicable to the alleged shortcomings of the appellee's amended petition, or, as the instrument is called in the transcript, "Amended Grounds of the Election Contest." The only portion of the pleadings of any importance on this appeal are the allegations in said amended petition with reference to fraud and illegality in the conduct of the election in precinct No. 1, for the reason that it is seen from the judgment that the trial court based his judgment on his recount of the ballots in said box in voting precinct No. 1. Such allegations of fraud in that election precinct were that the election judge of said voting precinct was violently partisan and active in support of Meriwether, the appellant, during the election campaign; that he had bet a sum of money on the outcome of the election and had made his bet on the success of Meriwether, the appellant; that throughout the election he alone called off the count of the ballots to the clerks and that no other clerk or person saw how any person had cast his ballot and through mistake, accident or fraud on the part of the election judge the votes cast in precinct No. 1 were not properly called, counted or entered, and that the true result of the election in such precinct No. 1 was not shown by the returns. The appellant maintains that such allegations are too vague and broad and indefinite to give notice to him of what facts would be produced against him on the trial and that to permit a hearing and trial upon such allegations would allow the appellee, the contestant below, to "go on a fishing expedition" in presenting his testimony. Under the authority of Wilburn v. Galloway, Tex.Civ.App., 179 S.W.2d 540, by this court, such allegations were sufficient in a contest of this nature. See also Article 3130 and Article 3148, Ver.Ann.Civ.Stats., as amended in 1941. In applying the reasoning in the opinion in Wilburn v. Galloway, supra, to the instant case, we hold that it was impossible for the contestant to allege what individual voters' ballots had been miscalled in time to have made a definite pleading thereof in his petition. Such matters are obviously beyond the knowledge of anyone except the election judge himself. We believe that for the courts to require the contestant in an election contest, before being heard on his petition, to allege specifically the ballots which had been miscalled to his own disadvantage would amount to denying to a contestant and to the voters themselves protection from dishonest election judges. No...
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Vicars v. Stokely
...and recounted. State ex rel. Lukovich v. Johnston, 228 S.W.2d 327; Sewell v. Chambers, Tex.Civ.App., 209 S.W.2d 363; Meriwether v. Stanfield, Tex.Civ.App., 196 S.W.2d 704. Contestee, Vicars, opposed opening the boxes and contended that their careless custody after the election, had exposed ......
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Wood v. Brown
...the other candidate is ordinarily helpless to expose the wrong except by means of a recount. A case in point is Meriwether v. Stanfield (Tex.Civ.App.), 196 S.W.2d 704, where an election judge had bet on the winning candidate. In answering the argument that the contestant should have been re......
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Loudermilk v. Wilson, 2713.
...Article 3130 expressly authorized the filing of appellee's amended pleading. The Beaumont Court of Civil Appeals so held in Meriwether v. Stanfield, 196 S.W.2d 704. Within ten days after issuance of the certificate of nomination Wilson filed his first amended petition challenging the action......
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Garcia v. Avila
...ballots. Thus, the secrecy of the ballot was in no way encroached upon by the inspection of the election materials. 2 Cf. Meriwether v. Stanfield, 196 S.W.2d 704, 706 (Tex.Civ.App. Beaumont 1946, no writ) (trial court's tabulation and counting of ballots did not encroach upon secrecy of bal......