serve the requirements results in an illegal ballot. In the instance of Colville precinct, the number of such ballots cast is at least the number found by the trial court.
Where mandatory requirements are not observed, it will necessarily result in individual cases that the will of the electors may not be effectively carried out, and this, even though there be no fraud or no great blame attaching to any person. However unfortunate this may be in a particular case, it is unimportant compared to the safeguarding of the ballot against insidious attacks to which it would be subject if mandatory requirements could be safely ignored. Such consequences are unavoidable in the enforcement of mandatory statutes; but the apparent harshness of the result is not as great here as in some other situations that occasionally arise. For instance, the mere failure of the election officer to place his initials on the back of the official ballot renders the vote absolutely void by express statutory declaration. Section 1006, Compiled Laws of 1913; Miller v. Schallern, 8 N. D. 395, 79 N. W. 865. This is an omission that the voter is in no wise responsible for; yet, in the interest of fair elections in the long run, ballots not so marked must be disregarded. It is for similar reasons that votes must be disregarded where the voters who presumably do not belong to the excepted class and an officer of the election have disregarded wholesome requirements intended to preserve the purity of the ballot.
It follows from what has been said that the judgment is right, and it is affirmed.
Christianson, and Robinson, JJ., concur.
Bronson, J., concurs in result.
Grace, C. J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part). For the reasons sated in my opinion in the case of Drinkwater v. Nelson, post., 187 N. W. 152, I am fully convinced that the judgment in this case should be reversed, and the contest proceedings dismissed.
The discussion which is set forth in my opinion of Drinkwater v. Nelson is a sufficient discussion of the questions of law and fact which have arisen in this case.
