187 A. 833 | Md. | 1936
The appellant, as a citizen and taxpayer of Baltimore City, and registered voter in the Fourth Congressional District, filed a bill in equity to restrain the Secretary of state from certifying to the board of supervisors of elections of the city the name of Ross Thalheimer, for printing on the ballot as that of a candidate for the United States Congress from the Fourth District, at the election of November 3rd, 1936, and to restrain the board from printing the name on the ballot. A demurrer to the bill by Thalheimer, intervening on his own behalf, was sustained, and the bill dismissed. After argument on the appeal, this court concluded that the decree must be affirmed, and so ordered on October 16th, 1936, deferring the filing of a reasoned opinion to avoid delay so near the *645 time of election. The reasons which led to the conclusion are now stated.
The candidate, Ross Thalheimer, was not nominated at a party convention or primary election, but produced for the Secretary of State a purported certificate of nomination signed by 2,393 names, to comply with the requirement in the Code, art. 33, sec. 51, of a certificate signed by at least 1,500 names of voters in the district to procure nomination and inclusion on the ballot. It is complained that the certificate fails to comply with the statute, because oaths specified to be taken before justices of the peace appear on this certificate to have been taken before a notary public, and because fewer than 1,500 of the signatures attached conform to the statutory requirements. A question of jurisdiction in the court of equity to interfere, on these allegations, was first raised and decided below.
That the court of equity has no jurisdiction to decide election contests, and generally, to interfere in political controversies, has been decided in a number of cases in this state as well as elsewhere. Hardesty v. Taft,
In the case last cited, a distinction was drawn between interferences by the courts with the political conduct of elections, and taking jurisdiction of a question whether persons assuming to avail themselves of the election machinery set up for private initiative are persons entitled under the law to do so. And the question in the present case seems analogous to that of which the court assumed jurisdiction. Private persons presenting a petition to have a name placed on the ballot by the prescribed method of signed certificates are alleged to be not such persons as may avail themselves of that method. There is no other tribunal which can afford the preventive remedy if this is true. The writ of quo warranto, found adequate in decisions in other states, is not one used in Maryland. Hawkins v. State,
The court is of opinion that the provision in section 3 of article 68 of the Code, empowering notaries to administer oaths in all matters and cases of a civil nature in which a justice of the peace may administer an oath, applies to validate the oaths to the names on this certificate. It is comprehensive in its terms, with the apparent intention of removing any restriction of administration of oaths to justices only, and it is generally understood to give notaries the power in all cases. We can think of no object in excepting these particular oaths from the general rule.
The Election Law, Code, art. 33, sec. 51, requires that the signers of the certificates shall be voters residing in the political division in and for which the officer is to be elected, and that affidavits annexed shall state that *647 they are registered voters of the district or precinct in which they respectively reside. And it is averred that of the 2,393 signatures here presented, 1,347 are not registered at addresses given as residences of the signers. To this charge objection is made that such a blanket, indefinite, allegation of facts not to be found from the certificate itself is not sufficient to require an answer, that the defendants should first be informed what names are referred to, but we may pass that. Miller, EquityProcedure, 116. It is found sufficient as a reply that, in the opinion of the court, the statute is intended to require only that signers of certificates for candidates for Congress shall reside in the congressional district, and that the affidavits attached shall state that they are residents in the district. The statute must contemplate changes of residence within the district during the period covered by registration, and the fact that 1,347 persons are not now residents at the addresses given on the registration books is not of itself indicative of residence outside the district.
It is averred, further, that of the 2,393 signers, 1,416 fail to state their business addresses and 880 their occupations, as is expressly required by section 51 of article 33. This raises a question whether deficiencies in these respects are intended by the statute to render the signatures ineffectual, and not to be counted in the number required. Whatever the statute intends must, of course, be carried out, but there is no express provision that statements of the business addresses and the occupations are so essential to the signatures, and the intention must be inferred mainly from the result which would be accomplished by one construction and the other. Graham v.Wellington,
Decisions in other states have generally regarded such requirements as directory. Stackpole v. Hallahan,
With these objections met, objections remaining would not affect a sufficiently large number of signers to reduce the total below 1,500, and they need not therefore be dwelt upon. Other questions argued need not be decided.