The Resolution of Election Disputes: Legal Principles that Control Election Challenges • • • • • whether a bond must be posted to file a challenge (and how much the bond must be for), when a challenge will be heard, by whom a challenge will be heard, what evidence will be necessary to sustain a challenge, and what remedies are available if a challenge is sustained. Different countries run elections in different ways. In many countries, there is a central election commission that conducts all of the elections in the country. That commission must follow the constitutional provisions, laws and regulations that apply to elections. In the United States, each state conducts its own elections. Usually, the state’s power to conduct elections is passed on by state law to the counties and cities in the state. They must follow the state constitutional provisions, laws and regulations that apply to elections. No matter how the administration of elections is organized, the principle is the same: the rules that govern elections contain all of the rules for challenging an election, and there are no other grounds on which an election challenge can be made. The reason for this principle was set out clearly by an Ohio court in a case where John Mirlisena lost an election for the city council in Cincinnati by 62 votes out of a total of 76,592 votes cast. He challenged—as irregularities—the location of a polling place, the absence of voters’ names from the poll books, an incorrect verbal instruction to a voter by a poll worker, the failure to send voters notice of their registration and the return of voter notices as undeliverable by the post office. Before the court looked at any of Mr. Mirlisena’s claims, it defined the boundaries within which it was constrained to act: The court must be ever mindful in an election contest that it has been delegated responsibility in a basically political matter and is not free to create criteria that may, in its opinion, be more suitable than those the legislature has established: It has been definitely held by this court that an election contest is a political matter and not a judicial matter * * *. Williams v. O’Neill (1944), 142 Ohio St. 467, 468, 52 N.E.2d 858[27 O.O. 400]. * * * [M]any highly technical requirements in elections laws exist. * * * [C]ourts should be careful not to read requirements into election laws which are not specifically there. State, ex rel. Leslie v. Duffy (1955) 164 Ohio St. 178, 183, 129 N.E.2d 632 [57 O.O. 371]. Mirlisena v. Fellerhoff, 463 N.E.2d 115, 118-119 (Ct. Comm. Pleas 1984)1. B. Statutory procedures must be strictly followed. The principle that there is no common law basis for a challenge to an election was crucial in deciding the case of Taylor v. Roche, 248 S.E.2d 580 (S.C. 1978). In 1976, the State of South Carolina held a referendum to amend the state constitution to allow county school boards to issue bonds to raise money, without first holding an election to get the voters’ approval to issue the bonds. The referendum question was adopted in the election, amending the constitution. The new provision became effective in November 1977. But Theodore N. Taylor claimed that the voters were tricked when they voted in favor of amending the South Carolina Constitution, because the wording on the ballot was so confusing and deceptively worded that the voters did not realize what the ballot question meant. 1 We will find out about the particular irregularities Mr. Mirlisena complained of, and how the court dealt with them, in Chapter 2, Section D. Inferences about irregularities can be drawn from facts, but not from other inferences. 2