Mr. Dan Brazil Opinion No. C-255
County Attorney
Angelina County Re: Sufficiency of applications
Lufkin, Texas for a local option election
and related question.
Dear Mr. Brazil:
In your letter, you asked two questions with regard
to the construction of Article 666, Section 32, Vernon’s Penal
Code in anticipation of a local option election.
In your first question you asked which application
should the County Clerk use in making out the petitions for a
local-option election, when two applications have been filed
on different dates.
The pertinent part of Article 666, Section 32, Ver-
non’s Penal Code reads as follows:
“Upon the written application of any ten
(10) or more qualified voters of any county,
justice’s precinct, or incorporated city or
town, the County Clerk of such county shall
Issue to the qualified voters thereof for the
signatures of those qualified voters In such
area who desire that a local option election
be called therein for the purpose of deter-
mining whether the sale of alcoholic beverages
of one or more of the various types and alco-
holic contents shall be prohibited or legalized
within the prescribed limits of such county,
justice’s precinct, or incorporated city or
town.
“An application for a petition seeking an
election to legalize the sale of alcoholic bev-
erages of one or more of the various types and
alcoholic contents shall be headed ‘Application
for Local Option Election Petition to Legalize,’
and shall contain a statement just ahead of the
signatures of the applicants, as follows: ‘It
is the hope, purpose and intent of the appll-
cants whose signatures’ appear hereon to see le-
galized the-sale of alcoholic beverages referred
to in the issue set out above.’ . . .
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Mr. Dan Brazil, Page 2 (Opinion No. C-2!%)
“An application for a petition seeking an
election to prohibit the sale of alcoholic bev-
erages of one or more of the various types and
alcoholic contents shall be headed ‘Application
for Local Option Election Petition to Prohibit,!
and shall contain a statement just ahead of the
signatures of the applicants, as follows: ‘It
Is the hope, purpose and intent of the applicants
whose signatures appear hereon to see prohibited
the sale of alcoholic beverages referred to In
the Issue set out above.’ . . .”
There Is no language in the above statute or in the
Liquor Control Act prohibiting more than one application for
a petition for a local option election. If both applications
are In substantial compliance with the above statute regarding
form and requisite signatures, then this office is of the opinion
that either or both of the applications may be used.
If the first application Is In error (as you indicate
in your letter) to such a degree that it does not comply with the
statute, then the County Clerk may not Issue a petition upon said
application. If the second application is correct In form (as
you also so indicate), then the County Clerk must Issue a petition
upon it.
In your seaond question, you state that the applicants
have requested that the Clerk Issue 60 petitions. You go on to
ask whether these petitions should be numbered 1 through 60 or
should all bear the number 1,
The pertinent part of the statute reads as follows:
“Each such petition shall show the date
of its Issue by the County Clerk and shall be
serially numbered, and each page of such peti-
tion shall bear the same date and serial num-
ber, and shall bear the seal of the County
Clerk. ” (Emphasis Supplied)
In a similar question presented in Hutson v. Smith, 191
S.W.2d 779 (Tex.Civ.App. 1946) the court stated:
“The County Clerk issued the petitions in
the form of seventeen copies, or originals, ac-
cording as the Interpretation to be placed on
what was issued may be. That Is to say, if~we
consider the petition to be an ideal thing apart
from the written instruments which evidenced it,
then there was no original, and all were copies.
In any case each copy which was issued by the
County Clerk has the same legal effect and sta-
tus and operated in every respect as every other
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Mr. Dan Brazil, Page 3'~(0plnionNo.'C-255)
COPY, and, exaept upon an arbitrary basis, each
copy was entitled to be considered as an ori-
ginal.
n. . .
*Serial means 'belonging to, forming part
of or consisting of a series; taking place or
occurlng In regular succession.' Ox.Eng.Dict."
The Court went on to conclude In that case that under
the Liquor Control Act requiring petition for local option elec-
tion to be serially numbered, a County Clerk's administrative
construction of requirement to mean that each copy of petition
was in law an original, duplicate original, triplicate original,
etc., and applying provision on that basis In serially number
ing the copies, was correct.
Under the above authorities, therefore, this office
holds that the County Clerk may correctly number the petitions
1 through 60.
SUMMARY
1. Either or both of two applications pre-
sented for a petition for a local option
election may be used if in aonformlty with
the statutory requisites.
2. Where applicants for a petition for a
local option election request 60 petitions
for tiirculation, they may be numbered 1
through 60.
Respectfully submitted,
WAGGONER CARR
Attorney General of Texas
By:
BSC/ls
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Mr. Dan Brazil, Page 4 (Opinion No. C-255)
APPROVED:
OPINION COMMITTEE
W. V. Geppert, Chairman
Robert T. Davis
Robert Smith
John Reeves
Llnward Shivers
APPROVEDFOR THE ATTORNEYGENERAL
BY: Stanton Stone
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