The Resolution of Election Disputes: Legal Principles that Control Election Challenges In another case, Jernigan v. Curtis, 622 S.W.2d 686 (Ky. App. 1981), the difference between the candidates was only four votes. Patsy Jernigan got 1,857 votes but came in second to Jessie Pearl Curtis who had 1,861 votes in the May 26, 1981 contest for the Republican Party nomination for the Monroe County, Kentucky, Clerk of the Circuit Court. A third candidate, Melva Jean Headrick, got 889 votes. The court of appeals considered the numerous irregularities claimed by Ms. Jernigan in two ways. First, the court looked at some individual instances where illegal votes were claimed to have been cast. Then the court considered the overall activities that were claimed to be illegal at two particular precincts, Fountain Run and West Tompkinsville. With only a four-vote margin, a decision that a few ballots were illegal could have had a significant impact on the election results, and a decision to void the results of an entire precinct could have resulted in a new election for the Republican Party nominee for the circuit court clerk, either in that precinct or in the whole county. The court of appeals upheld the trial court’s decision that one ballot was illegal because it was “openly” cast by a woman who voted for Ms. Curtis. “Open voting” in this case meant that two people were in the same voting booth at the same time. Anyone looking at the voting booth would have seen four legs behind the curtain. Often people in a voting booth together were husbands and wives. Sometimes they were not related, with one person assisting the other person in using the voting machines. The court of appeals agreed with the trial court that the open vote should be subtracted from Ms. Curtis’ total but disagreed with the trial court’s decision to add that vote to Ms. Jernigan’s total, saying, The illegality here was not that Mrs. Gillenwater’s vote was cast for someone other than the candidate for whom she wished to vote, but rather was that the vote was openly cast. A vote that is illegally cast cannot be counted.” At 689 (internal citation omitted) (emphasis supplied). One other ballot was found to be illegal: Levi Waller lived in another county so he was not eligible to vote in the Monroe County election (he had property that lay across the line between two counties, and it was ruled that he lived on the part of his property that was not in Monroe County). He testified he had voted for Ms. Curtis. His vote was subtracted from Ms. Curtis’ total, leaving her with a two-vote margin over Ms. Jernigan. Mr. Waller’s wife, Vera, also voted in the election, but she resisted the attempts to get her to testify. The court of appeals said that the trial court probably could have inferred that Ms. Waller also voted for Ms. Curtis but that there was no need to make the inference because Ms. Curtis still would have had more votes than Ms. Jernigan. There were two other ballots that may have been illegal. Mr. and Mrs. Key (G.C. and Joanne) testified that they were assisted in voting and that their ballots were cast for Ms. Curtis rather than Ms. Jernigan, who was the candidate they wanted. But the person who had assisted the Keys testified to the contrary, and the election officials who were at the polls testified that the Keys had not been assisted at all. So the court found that the evidence was inadequate to find the Keys’ ballots illegal. With Ms. Curtis ahead by just two votes, the court of appeals turned to the irregularities in the Fountain Run and West Tompkinsville Precincts. The votes received by the candidates in those precincts were: 86