Plaintiffs sue to annul an election held for voting a school tax. They contend that the proceedings were irregular, and, in the alternative, that a majority of
Section 8 of the statute under which the’ election was held (Act 256, p. 429, of 1910)-provides that:
“The ballot shall be in the. following form: !
“For the Levying of a Tax.
In the same resolution calling the election the school board proceeded to prescribe what should be the form of the ballot, or, in other words, proceeded to fill in those of the banks in this statutory form which have to be filled in by the authority calling the election, and they filled in the bank left for the insertion of the purpose of the tax in the manner just stated. Unless, therefore, they did not understand their own resolution, they filled this blank properly. In other words, they understood their resolution as containing but one proposition, and that proposition to be the one-expi'essed in the ballot. And the said resolution is easily susceptible of that interpretation. While the expression, “For the purpose of giving additional aid to the public schools, or to erect, etc., school buildings,” might appear to contain two propositions, one “to aid the public schools,” and the other “to erect, etc., school buildings,” it is easily susceptible of the interpretation of containing only the one proposition of aiding the public school — the other apparent proposition being nothing more than an explanation, or development of the first. The conjunction “or” has not always an alternative-meaning. It is not always synonymous with “or else,” but often has an explanatory meaning, synonymous with the phrases “in other words” or “that is to say”; and it has the latter meaning in the said resolution, which must therefore be understood as if it read, “in aid of the public schools, or, in other words, to erect, etc., school buildings.” So reading -the resolution, it has not ideal precision, but is sufficiently definite, we think, to serve the purpose.
According to the latter view, the vote of Mrs. A. D. Peniston, who was assessed with property belonging to the estate of her deceased husband, to which her children were heirs and in which she herself had no proprietary interest, was properly rejected.
By a mere clerical error, the reduction made by the lower court in the vote of J. H. Knight against the tax was too great by $100. This we shall correct.
The learned trial judge found a majority of $508 in favor of the tax. This result he reached after having rejected the votes against the tax which are held hereinabove to have been valid. Counting these votes, as must be done, the tax was defeated.
Out of 78 votes cast at this election 24 were contested, necessitating an investigation of the land titles of the voters, and, incidentally, examination and study of succession settlements, community of acqugts and gains settlements, and- tutorship settlements. Fortunately for this court the number of contests was reduced by the sifting process through which they passed in the lower court to the comparatively few hereinabove considered. Would that the Constitution could be so amended as to preserve the courts from the burden of these tax election cases by letting the registration and assessment rolls be, in the absence of fraud, the sole and final tests of the qualifications of the voter; and would that political election cases could be relegated to some other more appropriate tribunal!
The judgment appealed from is set aside, and it is now ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the election held in School District No. 2 of the parish of Catahoula for voting a tax of eight mills on the dollar in aid of •the public schools of that district; on August 11, 1914, be held to have been null and void and be annulled and avoided, and that the writ of injunction issued herein against the sheriff and ex officio tax collector of said parish be and is hereby reinstated and perpetuated, and that defendant pay the costs of this suit.