Stanley v. Goff
| Decision Date | 08 May 1959 |
| Citation | 324 S.W.2d 124 |
| Parties | Chiles (Charles) H. 'Dick' STANLEY, Appellant, v. William G. GOFF et al., Appellees. D. M. 'Doc' HUTCHINSON, Appellant, v. William G. GOFF et al., Appellees. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Kentucky |
Marshall Davidson and Joe Hobson, Prestonsburg, for appellant.
Combs & Combs and W. W. Burchett, Prestonsburg, for appellee.
CLAY, Commissioner.
This is a consolidated election contest case involving candidates for membership of the city council of Martin, a fourth class city. Six places were to be filled on the city council, and appellants are two defeated candidates. Appellees are four elected members of the council who ran on an opposing ticket. The trial court dismissed appellants' complaints.
While ordinarily the council should determine a contest of its members, the circuit court has jurisdiction, as here, when the uncontested membership is less than a quorum. Davis v. Pendleton, 252 Ky. 838, 68 S.W.2d 416.
In this election appellants belonged to the 'Beehive' group; appellees ran on the 'Open Book' ticket. Most of appellants' complaints seem to center around the actions of one J. D. Adams, who acted as an election officer. There were certain irregularities about his appointment and qualifications, but he served in good faith as a de facto officer, and the irregulaities were not of sufficient significance to invalidate the election. Lunsford v. Culton, 23 S.W. 946; 15 Ky.Law Rep. 504; Smith v. Combs, 310 Ky. 755, 221 S.W.2d 672.
Appellants contend the election was not free and equal. This argument is based on the ground that 20 ballots found in the ballot box in Precinct No. 41 were not signed on the back by one of the election officers, as required by KRS 118.280. 18 of these had been voted for appellants. The contention is that these voters were disfranchised because Mr. Adams, who was partisan to the other ticket, did not sign these ballots. There are two obvious answers to this contention.
In the first place, there is no showing these ballots constituted proper votes. The ballots might well have been 'stuffed' in the ballot box, which seems to be exactly what the requirement of signing by an election officer was designed to safeguard against. Secondly, KRS 118.280 requires the voter to examine the ballot to see if it has been properly signed. If the voter neglected to vote a valid ballot, we cannot say under these circumstances that he was disfranchised by the election officer. There is simply no evidence in the case that any...
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...of the record has revealed nothing to suggest that this action was taken for any improper or ulterior purpose. See Stanley v. Goff, 324 S.W.2d 124, 125 (Ky. 1959) (declining to grant relief when an appellant claimed the existence of a conspiracy when there was no evidence that such a conspi......
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Thurman v. Keen
...process had been tainted to the degree which required a rejection of votes cast. Burchell v. Smith, Ky., 262 S.W.2d 365 and Stanley v. Goff, Ky., 324 S.W.2d 124 are representative of situations where the determination was that the irregularities arising from violations of statutory requirem......