More about District 3 court decision

My understanding is that in Judge Gillert's decision to void the election, the question about vacant lots who vote didn't really matter. I am told -- haven't confirmed this yet -- that as long as you register where you are domiciled when you first register, you can legally continue to vote there forever.

The crucial issue in this case was the fact that there were 50 more votes cast in the Democrat City Council primary in Precinct 20 than signed the Democrat registration book. In fact the number of votes cast in the Democrat City Council primary equals the number of votes cast in the Republican presidential primary and the Democrat presidential primary minus one. It is reported that some Republicans realized something was amiss and tried to return the City Council ballot but were told to go ahead and vote.

One theory suggests this was an honest mistake on the part of the precinct officials, who may have been confused over talk that this primary was tantamount to a general election, since no Republican was running. You would hope that precinct officials would understand the meaning of the phrase "closed primary". The Presidential Primary on the same day (for the first time) created an odd situation where everyone (except Independents) could vote in one primary, but only one party could vote in the other. I wonder if this happened in many other precincts -- a similar situation could have arisen in Districts 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8 -- all cases where one party had a primary and the other didn't, and in 7 and 8 the primary was like a general in that the winner of the primary would win the seat.

With over 50 invalid votes and a margin of only three, there is no way to know with certainty which candidate would have won if those invalid votes were removed from the pool. So under the law, the election is void, and a rerun of the election will be held with exactly the same candidates on the ballot.