The Resolution of Election Disputes: Legal Principles that Control Election Challenges At 117 (internal citation omitted). Thus, the court set out the core principles we discussed earlier: the result of the election can be successfully challenged by evidence that the irregularities could have changed the result of an election45 or that irregular procedures were so flagrant and widespread as to raise doubt as to the entire election. The court’s treatment of the proof that was offered on each of the irregularities in Mirlisena gives an especially clear picture of the task a litigant has in trying to prove directly, without piling inference upon inference, that violations occurred and materially affected the election.46 In each instance, the court describes the facts that Mr. Mirlisena claims constitute widespread irregularities and then enumerates the assumptions that underlie his claims. For the reader, it is almost like a game of trying to find the hidden clues among the forest of facts. On election day, some people who came to the polls with their voter registration application receipts were not allowed to vote because their names were not on the voter registration cards or the signature lists at the polling places. The voter registration application receipt is a portion of the voter registration card that was torn off by the registrar at the time the voter registration card was filled out, and given to the applicant. The remaining large portion of the card became the official registration card, called the “buff card,” after the information was verified by the board of election. Voter registration was conducted not only in the voter registrar’s office, but also by more than 4,000 volunteer registrars (as was allowed under Ohio law). Mr. Mirlisena claimed that the volunteer registrars did not turn in many applications for registration, which is why there were no buff cards at the polls for many people who showed up with their voter registration application receipts. He said that there were enough of those disenfranchised voters to invalidate the election. Moreover, he said that the volunteer registrars were agents of the board of elections, and therefore the disenfranchisement of those voters was the fault of the board of elections. In response, the court said that it did not even have to reach the question of whether the volunteers were agents of the board of elections because, even if they were, [N]umerous inferences must be made before the board of elections can be held to have erred… 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. That the receipt was furnished the voter by a volunteer registrar; That the buff card was not turned in by the volunteer registrar; That, if the buff card was turned in, the applicant was qualified for registration; That the application was made before the deadline; That the voter presented himself to vote at the proper polling place; That the voter did not, in fact, vote somewhere else; That the person with the receipt was the person to whom it was originally given; and That the receipt was obtained for the current election. A simple review of the eight inferences just delineated quickly makes it apparent that inference upon inference upon inference must be made to justify petitioner’s position. This simply cannot be done. …[T]he court finds that petitioner has not proven his allegations pertaining to the alleged irregularities just discussed. At 120. 45 46 Here, illegally preventing 62 people from voting in an election that was decided by 62 votes. Mr. Mirlisena’s claim that a polling place was moved, without complying with the applicable statute, to a place on a hill that was inconvenient to many voters will be discussed in Chapter 6. 40