any ticket or ballot which such other person intends to use in voting. NOTE.-See note to Sec 1199, post. 1196. No ballot must be used at any election, or circulated on the day of any election, having any mark or thing on the back or outside thereof whereby it might be distinguished from any other ballot legally used on the same day. NOTE.-See note to Sec. 1199, post. 1197. No ballot or ticket must be used or circulated on the day of any election, having any mark or thing thereon by or from which it can be ascertained what persons, or what class of persons, or at what time in the day such ballot was voted or used. NOTE.-See note to Sec. 1199, post. If it were permissible to place a mark on the inside of a ticket to indicate the person or class of persons who voted it, then combinations of voters engaged in that greatest of all outrages against the elective franchise and free government, selling their votes, would be permitted to give indubitable proof of their perfidy, and receive the reward for their violation of the law, which it is the express purpose of this Article to prevent.-See note to Sec. 1199, post. This section has also the object of inducing inquiry on the part of the voter to the very purpose of the election, and by an examination of the entire ticket to see that his choice is expressed thereon without reference to devices. If such mark or thing is found on the ticket, it must of course violate either Subdivisions 3 or 4 of Section 1191, ante. And if written so as to indicate who, or what class of persons voted it, it is to be rejected in the count, in like manner as if it was so printed as to indicate the same. It will be observed that by the terms of this section and Sec. 1191, ante, a ticket cannot have printed thereon any such device as "Republican Ticket" or "Democratic Ticket," etc., as that would designate what class of persons voted the ticket, and such device might have the effect of leaving unequal margins-i. e., the names of the persons voted for would be either above or below the center of the ticket. Again, in the election for Tickets not to be Presidential Electors, the names of the party nominees for President or Vice President cannot appear, for they are not the persons voted for. 1198. Every ticket, when used as a ballot, must be folded crosswise four times from the center, so as to make the ballot three fourths of one inch in size, and must be pressed flat. NOTE.-See note to Sec. 1199, post. 1199. No ticket must be folded in a manner to folded so as indicate its contents when used as a ballot. to indicate their contents. Tickets folded together must be rejected. NOTE.-The eight preceding sections are intended to prevent the distribution of tickets within one hundred feet of a polling place, and to give to the ballot that secrecy which is so necessary to its purity. It is perhaps impossible to afford sufficient guards to that end without building up a system that could not be conveniently carried into execution. Under the provisions of this Title, tickets will always be printed and distributed several days in advance, and interested parties will undoubtedly afford to every elector an opportunity to procure and fix his ticket to suit, days before the election, so that each elector may come to the polling place with a ballot already prepared; then, if a ticket or ballot is delivered to him and coercion attempted, he is at least afforded some opportunity to vote his own choice, for no ticket can be delivered to him within one hundred feet of the polling place, and he has that distance within which to change a ballot delivered to him for one he has already prepared. Again, independent of the question of coercion, there is another consideration, founded upon the well known fact that in cities clubs are organized for the express purpose of selling the votes of their members. If the vendor has one hundred feet in which to change his ballot, and no mark can be used on it, he will have no means of establishing the fact that he has voted for any given person, and when these means are taken from him his occupation would be gone, for none would buy and trust to the faith of one who would sell his birthright. 1200. If in the ballot box two tickets are found folded together in the form of a ballot, they must both be rejected. Ballots rejected for not to be obscurity in the name of person or 1201. No ballot or part thereof must be rejected by reason of any obscurity therein in relation to the name of the person voted for or the designation of the office, if the Board, from an inspection of the ballot, office. can determine the person voted for and the office intended. 1202. If the names of more persons are designated on any ballot found in the ballot box for the same office than are to be chosen for such office, then, except in the cases provided for in the next section, all the names designated for such offices must be rejected, and the fact of such rejection, and the reasons therefor, must at the time of such rejection be noted on the ballot and signed by a majority of the Election Board. 1203. When upon a ballot found in any ballot box a printed name and a name written with ink or with pencil appears, and there are not so many persons to be chosen for the office, the printed name must be rejected and the written one counted, and the fact must at the time be noted on the back of the ballot, and such note must be signed by a majority of the Election Board. NOTE. This is but the enactment of a common law rule relative to the interpretation of instruments drawn upon blank forms, namely: that when the written and printed matter conflict, the latter must be rejected.Robinson vs. French, 4 East., p. 130; Weisser vs. Maitland, 3 Sand., p. 318; Parsons on Contracts (3 vol. ed.), Vol. 2, p. 516. Sec. 1862 of the Code of Civil Procedure is in accord with the principle that underlies this section. It declares that "when an instrument consists partly of written words and partly of a printed form, and the two are inconsistent, the former controls the latter." tickets not to be erased but 1204. When upon a ballot found in any ballot box Printed a name has been erased and another substituted therefor, in any other manner than by the use of a lead by lead pencil or common writing ink, the substituted name pencil or ink. Two votes on same ballot for same person must be counted as one. Marked ballots to must be rejected, and the name erased, if it can be ascertained from an inspection of the ballot, must be counted, and the fact thereof must be noted upon the ballot, and such note must be signed by a majority of the Election Board. NOTE. This section is intended to prevent the use of nitrate of silver, or any other chemical substance which may be written over a name and not be distinguishable until time brings out the impression; also, to prevent the use of pasters, the use of which is subject to two objections: first, their liability to come off; second, their liability to be fraudulently taken off. 1205. If a ballot is found in any ballot box containing the name of the person and the office for which he is designated, or either, two or more times, it must not for that reason be rejected; it must be counted as one ballot. NOTE. See Chief Justice Sanderson's opinion in . People vs. Holden, 28 Cal., p. 124; and case of Ashfield, Cush. Elect. Cases, p. 583. 1206. When a ballot found in any ballot box be rejected. bears upon the outside thereof any impression, device, color, or thing, or is folded in a manner designed, to distinguish such ballot from other legal ballots deposited therein, it must, with all its contents, be rejected. Same. NOTE.-See notes to Secs. 1197 and 1199, ante. 1207. When a ballot found in any ballot box bears upon it any impression, device, color, or thing, folded in a manner intended to designate or impart knowledge of the person who voted such ballot, it must with all its contents be rejected. NOTE.-See notes to Secs. 1197, 1199, ante. If it is apparent from examination, or satisfactorily shown by proof, that a certain handwriting was used for the purpose of indicating the voter or class of voters voting the ticket, it must be rejected, for this would be a "thing" indicating that which the law proposes to avoid.-See notes to Secs. 1197-1199, and Sec. 1191, ante. 1208. When a ballot found in any ballot box does not conform to the requirements of Section 1191, it must, with all its contents, be rejected. 1209. Whenever the Board of Election rejects a ballot, it must at the time of such rejection cause to be made thereon and signed by a majority of the Board an indorsement of such rejection and of the causes thereof. NOTE.-See note to succeeding section. Ballots not conforming to require ments of law must be rejected Rejected ballots to be indorsed 1210. All rejected ballots must be preserved and Rejected returned in the same manner as other ballots. NOTE.-The indorsement and preservation of ballots rejected are provided for, to the end that if any one doubts the correctness of the action of the Election Board, that action may be reviewed in the Courts upon the documentary evidence thus preserved. 1211. Whenever a question arises in the Board as to the legality of a ballot, or any part thereof, and the Board decide in favor of the legality, such action, together with a concise statement of the facts that gave rise to the objection, must be indorsed upon the ballot, and signed by a majority of the Board. NOTE. This section provides for the preservation, in a written form, of any fact that may be supposed to invalidate the ballot, but which the Judges may hold does not, and affords an opportunity to have the question passed upon by the Courts upon such written evidence. This and the preceding section, it seems, would pretty effectually dispose of the practice of tampering with ballots after they are once counted, for the record in each case is made in the presence of the bystanders at the time of counting. Upon the ballots objected to, and rejected or not rejected, the indorsement would show the condition of the ballot at the time it was counted or rejected, and if, upon examination of the ballots made at any time subsequent to the counting, a ballot was found without indorsement, and yet a valid ballot, the presumption would be a near approach to a conclusive one that such ballot had been tampered with; for when ballots are counted by officers belonging to different political parties, in the presence of vigilant friends and ballots must be preserved. Ballots not but rejected objected to must be indorsed. |