The Resolution of Election Disputes: Legal Principles that Control Election Challenges vote for or against the bond issue and that the 425 voters should have been required to make an affidavit before they voted, but that the requirement for the affidavit was directory and not mandatory.32 Under these circumstances, the Texas Court of Appeals concluded, Appellants have the burden of establishing that, because of the irregularities shown, the true result of the election was changed…We have considered each complaint presented by the appellants in their brief and conclude that they have failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) that there were any illegal votes sufficient to change the result of said election; and (2) that a determination of the true will of the majority of the qualified voters participating in said election is impossible. Deffebach v. Chapel Hill Independent School District, 650 S.W.2d 510, 513 (Tex. App. Tyler 1983) (emphasis supplied). Mr. Deffebach lost his challenge. But note that the Texas court’s statement of the rule has two prongs. The first prong says that an election challenge will not succeed unless there are enough illegal votes to change the result of the election. However, the second prong is broader and says that an election challenge can succeed if the facts show that the will of the voters cannot be determined. B. Proof that irregularities have altered the will of the voters usually will win a lawsuit challenging an election. The Texas court’s statement of the two-part rule in Deffebach is similar to other courts’ statements of this basic principle in election challenges. But it is difficult to prove that the will of the voters has been altered without proving how the particular irregularities changed the result of the election. Two Louisiana cases illustrate this point. First, we will look at Valence v. Rosiere, 675 So.2d 1138 (La. Ct. App. 1996), a case that was discussed in Chapter 1. Andy Valence, the incumbent mayor of Grand Isle, Louisiana, lost his bid for reelection to Robert Rosiere by 17 votes. Mr. Valence filed an election challenge saying that there were at least 20 illegal absentee ballots cast at the election. The trial court granted Mr. Rosiere’s motion to dismiss Mr. Valence’s lawsuit because he filed his petition after the deadline set by the statute, but the court of appeal applied the common law principle of due diligence to allow Mr. Valence’s case to proceed. It is important to note that this was a case where the irregularities that were alleged would have made at least 19 of the 20 challenged ballots invalid. The irregularities were not technical matters, such as the lack of affidavits in the Deffebach case. Moreover, Mr. Valence had specific evidence to show that the facts he alleged were true. The appellate court began by reciting the basic rule of how to look at the facts when a motion to dismiss is before the court: “all well pleaded allegations of fact are accepted as true and must be construed most favorably from the plaintiff ’s standpoint to afford him an opportunity to present his evidence at trial.” At 1139. Then the appellate court set out the standard for deciding how facts about fraudulent votes would affect the results of the election. General charges of fraud and irregularities are not sufficient to state a cause of action…However, “if the court finds the proven frauds and irregularities are of such a serious nature as to deprive the voters of the free expression of their will, it will decree the nullity of the entire election—even though the contestant might not be able to prove that he would have been [elected] but for such fraud and irregularities.” …Generally, however, the allegations of the petition must show a sufficient number of contested votes to change the results of the election… 32 Chapter 3 has an in-depth discussion of the distinction between mandatory and directory election provisions. 24