Chapter 3 violated statutes that were directory, not mandatory. In the process, those courts described the fundamental nature of the principles underlying their analysis and illustrated how those principles applied to the particular facts of those cases. The analysis of these three leading cases will be followed by a discussion of how the mandatory/directory analysis affects four kinds of statutes: • • • • statutes that require officials to initial ballots, statutes on handling ballots, statutes on candidate qualification procedures, and statutes on the secrecy of the ballot. B. Leading case I: The facts of Boardman v. Esteva. Absolute strict compliance, even with mandatory provisions in every case…could reach absurd proportions. Strict compliance is not some sacred formula nothing short of which can guarantee the purity of the ballot. These statements were made by the Supreme Court of Florida in the case of Boardman v. Esteva, 323 So.2d 259, 265, 267 (Fla. 1975). In Chapter 2, the Boardman case was used as an example of a challenger’s need to satisfy the burden of proving his or her claim. Edward F. Boardman had been declared the winner over Henry Esteva for a Florida state judgeship in 1972 on the basis of the 3,389 absentee votes cast. Mr. Esteva had received 404 more votes as recorded on the voting machines, but Mr. Boardman got 653 more absentee votes and won by 249 votes. Mr. Esteva said that there were irregularities in 1,450 absentee ballots, and since the invalid absentee ballots had been commingled with the valid absentee ballots, nobody could tell which was which. As a result, Mr. Esteva argued, all absentee ballots should be discounted, and he should win the election because he got the majority of the votes cast on the voting machines. These votes, he said, were the only reliable ones cast. The trial court disagreed. It found that many absentee ballots had irregularities, but only 88 were illegal. Of the 88 absentee ballots the trial court considered to be illegal, 13 had absentee ballot applications that were not signed by the voter, 17 had return envelopes that were not signed across the flap, 39 lacked an official title for the subscribing witness, and 19 were submitted by voters whose names were not on the voting rolls. The first-level state appellate court ruled in Mr. Esteva’s favor. The appellate court agreed that the 88 ballots were illegal and found that other irregularities proven by Mr. Esteva made additional ballots illegal. These additional irregularities included instances where the reason for voting absentee was not set out on the ballot application or on the return envelope, where there was no attesting witness’s address or the identification of the witness was vague, where there was no post office cancellation stamp, where the election officials did not record the voters’ oath, and where the return envelopes had been either lost or destroyed by the county canvassing boards.54 54 There were 429 ballots for which the return envelopes had been lost or destroyed by the county canvassing boards. The return envelopes contained the absentee voters’ affidavits that set out information about the voters required by state law, including the reason the voters satisfied the state law allowing them to vote absentee. Sharp-eyed readers will remember that 429 also was the number of people who voted in both the Republican Party primary election and the Democratic Party run-off election in Green v. Reyes discussed in Chapter 2. I have no explanation for the popularity of this number and can only marvel at the coincidence. 51