Chapter 3 The Supreme Court of New Hampshire quoted the applicable statute which read, “A ballot shall be regarded as defective and…that part shall not be tabulated if…the ballot has attached to it an adhesive strip, sticker, or plaster.” Kibbe v. Town of Milton, 700 A.2d 1224, 1226 (1997).72 The supreme court began its analysis by saying, In cases involving the violation of an election law, we inquire whether there was substantial compliance with the statute. When the violation consists of a minor deviation from the statutory requirements, we may find substantial compliance, and in such a case we will not invalidate a vote if the voter’s intent is clearly evident. We apply the doctrine of substantial compliance to effectuate our long-standing rule that statutes regulating the form of ballots or votes “should not be applied to disenfranchise voters because of technical irregularities.” Application of this doctrine is limited, however, to situations in which the defect or deviation is minor in nature. This is not such a case. Here, there was no substantial compliance; the statute clearly proscribes the use of stickers…The use of stickers in this case was neither a minor deviation nor a technical irregularity…[T]his is not a case in which a voter could have thought he or she was voting in compliance with the statute. Because there was no substantial compliance with the statute in this case, we are not at liberty to give controlling effect to the voters’ intent. Even when the voters’ intent is clear, if the means they employed to indicate their vote does not substantially comply with the applicable statute, “their attempt to vote…is a failure.” At 1227 (internal citations omitted). The supreme court’s most interesting statement may be that, “As applied in this case [the statute] regulates the manner by which a voter may not express his or her vote.” At 1228 (emphasis in the original). When the proposition is put that way, it is clear that Ms. Ball could not win by arguing that the voters’ intent to cast their ballots for her was expressed in substantial compliance with the statute. The concept of substantial compliance was discussed in Chapter 1 in connection with the need to follow procedural requirements to begin an election challenge. In Taft v. Cuyahoga Board of Elections, 854 N.E.2d 472 (Ohio 2006), Frederick I. Taft and Richard M. Bain both received 1,124 votes in the November 8, 2005 election for the fourth council seat in the City of Pepper Pike, Ohio. After a hearing by the board of elections and a trial court, an examination of a hanging chad and a coin flip, Mr. Taft was the winner. There were several issues raised when the case went on appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, but first the supreme court had to decide whether Mr. Bain was correct in claiming that the lower court did not have jurisdiction to handle Mr. Taft’s lawsuit because Mr. Taft did not file an adequate bond for his lawsuit. An Ohio statute required that a petition to contest an election “shall be accompanied by a bond with surety to be approved by the clerk of the appropriate court in a sum sufficient, as determined by him, to pay all the costs of the contest.” But Mr. Taft had filed a cash bond, not a surety bond; the bond did not obligate Mr. Taft to pay all of the expenses of the lawsuit; and it said that Mr. Taft bound himself only to the board of elections. The supreme court held that, 72 There was an exception to the no-sticker use in New Hampshire law, but it applied to situations where a candidate died or was disqualified and election officials used stickers to put a substitute candidate’s name on the ballot. Those were not the circumstances in Kibbe. 81