Chapter 3 tively, 34, 18 and 13 votes. Ms. Taylor was the candidate with 18 votes. The day after the election, Ms. Taylor and two candidates who lost badly in their races for the town council filed letters with the town election commission claiming that there were a number of irregularities in the election and contesting the election results. The election commission replied with a letter saying that some of the claimed violations were not proven and that the other claimed violations would not have changed the result of the election. The commission rejected the contest. Ms. Taylor and the two council candidates then sued the town council and the winning candidates in circuit court, claiming again that there were a number of irregularities, including the violation of the voters’ right to secrecy of the ballot. Twenty-three ballots were challenged; 21 of them were in the record that the supreme court reviewed. The challenged ballots were sheets of plain paper on which the voter wrote the names of the candidates he or she wanted and, in six instances, then signed the paper! The six voters did this because the polling place manager told them to. The polling place manager said that she had the voters cast their ballots this way “because we were rushing and did not get situated.” At 504. There were issues involved in the case besides the claim that the secrecy of the ballot was violated. Most of those other issues were procedural.68 The plaintiffs lost, and the case was appealed to the South Carolina Supreme Court. The supreme court decided the procedural issues against Ms. Taylor. On the issue of the secrecy of the ballot, the supreme court began its analysis in much the same way as it had in George. We will employ every reasonable presumption to sustain a contested election, and will not set aside an election due to mere irregularity or illegalities unless the result is changed or rendered doubtful. In the absence of fraud, a constitutional violation, or a statute providing that an irregularity or illegality invalidates an election, we will not set aside an election for a mere irregularity. At 502.69 But the supreme court went even further to emphasize the need for a real impact on the election if an irregularity by an election official was to be considered serious enough to invalidate an election. “Voters who have done all in their power to cast their ballots honestly and intelligently are not to be disfranchised because of an irregularity, mistake, error, or even wrongful act, of the officers charged with the duty of conducting the election, which does not prevent a fair election and in some way affect the result.” At 502 (internal citation omitted). This statement, stronger than the similar pronouncement in George, set the stage for the supreme court’s conclusion that the violation of the secrecy of the ballot, which actually identified the voters (while the violation in George did not), affected neither an essential element of the election nor the fundamental integrity of the election process. Thus, the South Carolina Supreme Court said, “We recently emphasized the importance of ballot secrecy in George…” But here, 68 69 Among those issues was the issue discussed in Chapter 1: the plaintiffs had asked the circuit court to set aside the election or send the matter back to the town election commission because the commission failed to set out in writing the reasons they rejected the plaintiffs’ alleged violations. These points were discussed in detail in Chapter 2. 73