The Resolution of Election Disputes: Legal Principles that Control Election Challenges into question while the procedure still can be corrected (when the provision is considered mandatory) or when it is too late to correct the procedure (when the provision is considered directory). This basis for the distinction between mandatory and directory provisions is commonly, although imprecisely, couched in terms of whether the irregularity occurred before or after the election. Thus, in common usage most election procedures that are said to be mandatory before an election are often considered to be directory once the election is over. The liberal construction of election statutes that makes them directory after an election, even if they were mandatory before the election, flows from the equity powers of the courts and allows for an equitable result in situations where things go wrong but the error does not critically affect the election. The extraordinary controlling impact of the mandatory/directory analysis was alluded to in several places earlier in this book. In our discussion of Logic v. City of South Milwaukee Board of Canvassers, 689 N.W.2d 692 (Wis. Ct. App., 2004), in Chapter 1, we said, The appeals court then examined Mr. Logic’s argument that the statute requiring service of the notice of appeal should be interpreted, like most election laws, to be directory not mandatory in order to preserve the will of the electorate. And the appeals court went further and said that even if the will of the electorate was involved in this case, the failure to serve notice was fundamental and therefore it was basic to the appeal process. So the requirement that other candidates be served with notice of the appeal would be mandatory, not directory. In the discussion of Deffebach v. Chapel Hill Independent School District, 650 S.W.2d 510 (Tex. App. Tyler 1983), in Chapter 2, we noted that, The trial court found that the absentee voting period was long enough under the statute, that the homemade ballots were acceptable because they set out the propositions and gave voters an opportunity to vote for or against the bond issue and that the 425 voters should have been required to make an affidavit before they voted, but that the requirement for the affidavit was directory and not mandatory. And in the discussion of Moreau v. Tonry, 339 So.2d 3 (La. 1976), appeal dism., 430 U.S. 925 (1977), also in Chapter 2, we said, …it appears more likely that the Moreau decision is explained by a fairly common approach that courts take in election dispute cases: the court adopted a standard that allowed it to avoid overturning an election where it was not persuaded that the facts of the case were sufficiently compelling to provide grounds for overturning the results. This approach will be notable in the cases we will examine where, in the absence of fraud, courts routinely define election procedures as directory rather than mandatory.53 The mandatory/directory analysis in this book will begin with a discussion of three leading cases that focus, respectively, on the plights of Henry Esteva, Gus Beckstrom and Rosemary Mulligan. All of them lost their election challenges because the courts decided that the irregularities involved in their elections A traditional standard was applied in a nontraditional way to achieve a particular result in In re Gray-Sadler 753 A.2d 1101, 164 N.J. 468 (N.J. 2000), where the New Jersey Supreme Court made inferences from inferences and then concluded that confusing ballot write-in instructions probably misled enough voters to make two candidates’ margin of loss so small that an election had to be rerun. Gray-Sadler was discussed in Chapter 2. 53 50