Opinion
No. 34990
Decided February 6, 1957.
Elections — Voting machines or cubicles for paper ballot voting — Number required at each polling place — Duty of county board of elections to furnish — Mandamus — Dismissal — Moot question.
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Montgomery County.
This cause originated in the Court of Appeals as an action in mandamus to compel the respondent Board of Elections of Montgomery County to provide in each polling place not less than one voting machine, or one cubicle in which paper ballots may be marked, for every 100 electors qualified to vote at each such voting place.
Relator contends that Sections 3501.29 and 3507.06, Revised Code, enjoin upon the respondent board the duty to so equip every polling place.
The petition alleges that respondent members of the board and their predecessors have taken the position that, when voting machines are used, the foregoing sections do not require the furnishing of one voting machine for every 100 qualified electors, on the assumption that a voter can cast his vote on a voting machine more quickly than by paper ballot. Relator alleges that such assumption is contrary to fact.
Respondents demurred to the petition for the reasons that there is a defect of parties respondent, and that the petition does not state a cause of action.
The Court of Appeals found that there is no defect of parties respondent and that the petition states a cause of action, and, respondents having declined to plead further, entered judgment for relator. The court, in its journal entry, ordered respondents "to provide at each polling place in Montgomery County not less than one voting machine or one cubicle in which paper ballots may be marked for every 100 electors qualified to vote at such polling place, together with all supplies necessary to utilize the same, and, thereafter, in fact, to provide such voting facilities in said quantities at the November 6, 1956, general election."
An appeal as of right brings the cause to this court for review.
Mr. Fredrick C. O'Grady, for appellee.
Mr. Mathias H. Heck, prosecuting attorney, for appellants.
Relator has filed a motion to dismiss the appeal for the reason that the question raised by relator's petition in the Court of Appeals is now moot.
The question is now moot for the reason that the judgment of the Court of Appeals is limited solely to the November 1956 election, and no complaint has been made as to such limitation. Therefore, the motion is sustained and the appeal dismissed.
Appeal dismissed.
WEYGANDT, C.J., ZIMMERMAN, STEWART, BELL, TAFT, MATTHIAS and HERBERT, JJ., concur.