The Resolution of Election Disputes: Legal Principles that Control Election Challenges On appeal, the Minnesota Supreme Court began by reviewing the “well-established policy of giving effect to the votes of legal voters regardless of irregularities in the election. No person should be deprived of his right to vote because of the neglect or carelessness of election officials unless that conduct has been carried to such an extent as to affect the true outcome of the election and put the results in doubt.” And, quoting one of its earlier decisions, the supreme court said, “…[A]fter an election is over, statutory regulations are usually construed to be directory rather than mandatory unless the departure from the statutes casts uncertainty upon the result.” At 187. However, there was a Minnesota statute that dealt specifically with what should be done when there is an excess of ballots found in the ballot box. Under these circumstances, the supreme court said, The liberal principles which generally hold that neglect and carelessness of election officials should not deprive a person of his right to vote must yield to the express provisions of this statute as it applies to the disposition of excess ballots. At 187. The express provisions of the statute required that the uninitialed ballots be taken out and not counted. The statute went on to say that if, after that were done, there still was an excess of properly marked ballots, all of the uninitialed ballots should be put back into the ballot box and an election judge (“without looking”) should take out as many ballots as were over the limit, and the remaining ballots would be counted. The Minnesota Supreme Court supposed that the trial court felt that the last part of that statutory instruction—to draw out a number of extra ballots—should be followed because there was no evidence of fraud, and so a result should be reached that gave equal weight to everyone’s vote by pulling out two of the ballots at random. But the supreme court adhered to the statutory directions. Without the six uninitialed ballots, the number of ballots left was within the number of registered voters. Still following the statute, the supreme court decided that those six ballots should not be counted. That resulted in a tie vote between Mr. Johnson and Mr. Trnka. The supreme court reversed the trial court’s judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with the statute. Uninitialed ballots also were determined to be invalid in Fultz v. Newkirk, 475 N.E.2d 706 (Ind. 1985). A trial court determined, after the examination of many contested ballots, that John D. Fultz beat Frank D. Newkirk, Sr., by 19 votes for election to the office of mayor of the City of Salem, Indiana. On appeal, the Indiana Court of Appeals followed then-recent decisions in Indiana that said that the initialing requirement ensured the integrity of the voting system by guaranteeing that only valid ballots went into and came out of the ballot box. Then the appeals court affirmed the trial court’s determination that none of the absentee ballots in three precincts should be counted because they were not initialed by the poll clerks as required by state statute. A different result was reached in Wilbourn v. Hobson, 608 So.2d 1187 (Miss. 1992), where the Hinds County, Mississippi, Election Commission had certified Hershel Wilbourn as the winner over Peggy Hobson by 31 votes out of 10,673 in a 1991 race for a seat on the Hinds County Board of Supervisors 66