Form of poll lists.

Names of persons voted for, and for what office, contain-. ing the number of votes given for each candidate.

Members of the Legislature.

Representative

Governor. in Congress.

Senate.

Assembly.

Want of form not to vitiate.

1175. No list, tally, paper, or certificate returned from any election must be set aside or rejected for want of form, nor on account of its not being strictly in accordance with the directions of this Title, if it can be satisfactorily understood.

NOTE.-As to immaterial irregularities and acts which do not vitiate an election, although erroneous, consult Whipley vs. McKune, 12 Cal., p. 352; Gorham vs. Campbell, 2 Cal., p. 135; People vs. Laine; Sprague vs. Norway; Knowles vs. Yeates; Bourland vs. Hildreth, etc., referred to in notes ante.

CHAPTER VIII.

ELECTION TICKETS AND BALLOTS.

[SECTION 1185. Ticket defined.

1186. Ballot defined.

1187. Tickets must be uniform.

1188. Secretary of State to keep paper for tickets.

1189. Must supply such paper to any person on application.

1190. Disposition of moneys collected from sale of paper.

1191. Form of ballot.

SECTION 1192. Ballots not to be given to any person within certain

limits.

1193. Tickets and ballots not to be folded or unfolded within

certain limits.

1194. Contents of tickets or ballots not to be exhibited

within certain limits.

1195. Persons not to be asked to disclose contents of ticket
or ballot.

1196. Ballots to have no marks on outside.

1197. Ballot to have no marks by which it can be told who
voted it.

1198. Tickets, how to be folded.

1199. Tickets not to be folded so as to indicate their contents.
1200. Tickets folded together must be rejected.

1201. Ballots not to be rejected for obscurity in the name of
person or office.

1202. When more persons are designated for an office than
are to be chosen, ballot to that extent must be
rejected.

1203. Written and printed names for the same office, which
to be rejected.

1204. Printed tickets not to be erased but by lead pencil or

ink.

1205. Two votes on same ballot for same person must be
counted as one.

1206. Marked ballots to be rejected.

1207. Same.

1208. Ballots not conforming to requirements of law must

be rejected.

1209. Rejected ballots to be indorsed.

1210. Rejected ballots must be preserved.

1211. Ballots not rejected but objected to must be indorsed.
1212. Ballots not in compliance with law not to be received.

defined.

1185. A ticket is a paper upon which is written Ticket, or printed the names of the persons for whom the elector intends to vote, with a designation of the office to which each person so named is intended by him to be chosen.

defined.

1186. A ballot is a ticket folded in such a manner Ballot that nothing written or printed thereon can be seen.

NOTE. The authority for this definition is Wharton's Law Lexicon, Title "Ballot." See, also, People vs. Holden, 28 Cal., p. 12; Const., Art. II, Sec. 6. "All elections by the people shall be by ballot."

Tickets

must be uniform.

Secretary of State to

for tickets.

1187. Every ticket must be of paper uniform in size, color, weight, texture, and appearance.

1188. The Secretary of State must provide and keep paper keep constantly on hand a sufficient quantity of paper, uniform in color, weight, texture, and appearance, without marks of any kind thereon, to supply the demand for paper for tickets.

Must supply such paper to

any person on application.

Disposition of money collected

from sale of paper.

Form of ballot.

1189. He must, upon payment of the cost thereof and ten per cent profit, furnish such paper to every person who may apply therefor and who makes and files with him an affidavit that such paper is to be used in providing tickets to be used as ballots at any election next to ensue.

1190. The sum collected by him for paper so sold must be paid into the State Treasury; and ten per cent of such sum must be credited to a Fund to be kept in the Treasury, and known as the "Election Reward Fund."

NOTE.-If the Secretary of State was compelled to furnish paper at cost prices he might be made a dealer in paper for general use. Buying in large quantities, he would purchase at prices less than the usual market rates, and as no restrictions of an effectual character can be thrown around the sale without giving the Secretary too much power in the premises, it has been thought advisable to increase the price ten per cent above the actual cost and to devote nearly the whole of such increased price to the payment of rewards given for the detection of election frauds.

1191. No ticket must be used at any election, or circulated on the day of election, unless:

1. It is written or printed on paper furnished by the Secretary of State, or upon paper in every respect precisely like such paper;

2. It is four inches in width and twelve inches in length, or within one eighth of an inch of such size; 3. If printed, the names of the persons voted for and the office designated are printed in black ink and

in long primer capitals-the name of the office in Same. small capitals, and of the person in large capitalsand both without spaces, except between the different words or initials in each line;

4. If printed, the same margin is left above the printed matter as below it, and the side margins are equal in size;

5. If printed, the lines are straight, and the matter single leaded;

6. If written, the matter is so written that no sign thereof appears when the paper is folded; and

7. It is free from every mark, character, or device or thing that would enable any person to distinguish it by the back, or, when folded, from any other legal ticket or ballot.

NOTE.-Subd. 1.—It is undoubtedly best not to compel the purchase of paper from the Secretary of State, but to allow parties to use paper precisely similar in character. In order that persons may not print and circulate illegal ballots, and thereby procure them to be voted and the vote to be rejected, the circulation of any other than legal tickets on election day is prohibited. The punishment for violation of the provisions of the election law are contained in the Penal Code, Secs. 41 to 61, inclusive-all that is done in this Title is to prohibit the wrong; the Penal Code affixes the punishment.

Subd. 2.-The size must be fixed arbitrarily. Were it left to be estimated by the number of names, or any similar test, persons might differ as to the application of the rule. In laws of this character-laws that are to be administered mostly by men unlearned in the law-simplicity is the greatest desirable quality. For the purpose of illustration attention is called to an Act which passed to engrossment at a recent session of the Legislature; it only fixed the width of the ballot, and not the length, and contained but few of the other safeguards contained in the preceding section; but had it contained all of the other safeguards it would, had it become a law, wholly failed of its purpose, because the length was not fixed. One political party might print a ticket twelve inches long, the other party thirty-six

33-VOL. I.

Ballots not

to be given

inches long, and the size of the ticket, folded as it must be, would still have indicated its contents.

Subd. 3.-The type selected is that in most frequent use. The object in requiring the printing to be done without spaces is to prevent the names from being alternately printed with and without spaces, whereby the impression on the paper might indicate from the back of the ballot the contents thereof.

Subd. 4.-Requires the printed matter to be in the center of the paper; otherwise it might be put on one side, or at the top or bottom; and the impression made by the printing might be used to indicate the contents of the ballot.

Subd. 5.-Affords room to erase a name and write another.

Subd. 7.-Is a general provision, to prevent the marking of tickets or ballots, and to cover cases that might not fall within the letter of the preceding subdivisions.

1192. No ticket or ballot must, on the day of

to any per- election, be given or delivered to or received by any

son within

certain limits.

Tickets and ballots

not to be folded or unfolded within

certain

limits.

Contents of

tickets or

to be

exhibited within

person, except the Inspector, or a Judge acting as Inspector, within one hundred feet of the polling place.

NOTE.-See note to Sec. 1199, post.

1193. No person must, on the day of election, fold any ticket or unfold any ballot which he intends to use in voting, within one hundred feet of the polling place.

NOTE.-See note to Sec. 1199, post.

1194. No person must, on the day of election, ballots not within one hundred feet of the polling place, exhibit to another, in any manner by which the contents thereof may become known, any ticket or ballot which he intends to use in voting.

certain

limits.

Persons not

to be asked to disclose contents of ticket or ballot.

NOTE.-See note to Sec. 1199, post.

1195. No person must, on the day of election, within one hundred feet of the polling place, request another person to exhibit or disclose the contents of