Chapter 5 “Voters who have done all in their power to cast their ballots honestly and intelligently are not to be disfranchised because of an irregularity, mistake, error, or even wrongful act, of the officers charged with the duty of conducting the election, which does not prevent a fair election and in some way affect the result.” At 502 (internal citation omitted) (emphasis supplied). Fairness also was a predominant theme in two of the leading cases discussed in Chapter 3 and summarized in the preceding section. In Boardman v. Esteva, 323 So.2d 259 (Fla. 1975), Edward F. Boardman had been declared the winner over Henry Esteva by 249 votes for a Florida state judgeship. Mr. Esteva had received 404 more votes on the voting machines, but Mr. Boardman got 653 more absentee votes. Mr. Esteva said that there were irregularities in 1,450 absentee ballots, and since the invalid absentee votes had been commingled with the valid absentee votes, Mr. Esteva said all the absentee ballots should be discounted, and he should win the election. The Florida Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that many absentee ballots had irregularities, but only 88 were illegal. The other irregularities included ballots where the reason for voting absentee was not set out on the ballot application or on the return envelope, where there was no attesting witness’s address or the identification of the witness was vague, where there was no post office cancellation stamp, where the election officials did not record the voters’ oath, and where the return envelopes had been either lost or destroyed in 429 instances by the canvassing board. The 88 illegal votes were discounted but the other ballots were counted in Mr. Boardman’s total, making him the winner. As to the ballots that ended up being counted in Mr. Boardman’s total, the Florida Supreme Court reasoned, In developing a rule regarding how far irregularities in absentee ballots will affect the result of the election, a fundamental inquiry should be whether or not the irregularity complained of has prevented a full, fair and free expression of the public will. Unless the absentee voting laws which have been violated in the casting of the vote expressly declared that the particular act is essential to the validity of the ballot, or that its omission will cause the ballot not to be counted, the statute should be treated as directory, not mandatory, provided such irregularity is not calculated to affect the integrity of the ballot or election. At 265 (emphasis supplied). And in Pullen v. Mulligan, 561 N.E.2d 585 (Ill. 1990), the trial court ordered that a tie between Penny Pullen and Rosemary Mulligan be broken by a flip of a coin, and Ms. Mulligan won the nomination. On appeal, the litigants questioned whether some uninitialed ballots should be counted and whether ballots of people who voted in the wrong precinct or wrong district should be counted. The supreme court’s resolution of those issues was guided by its view that, There is no universal formula for distinguishing between mandatory and directory provisions. Rather, whether a particular statutory provision is mandatory or directory depends upon the intent of the legislature, which is ascertained by examining the nature and object of the statute and the consequences which would result from any given construction… All of the provisions of the Election Code are mandatory in the sense that election officials are obligated to comply with their terms. It does not follow, however, that every failure to comply should invalidate the ballot in 109