Nobles v. Osborne

Hall, Presiding Judge.

At issue here is the interpretation of the Georgia Municipal Election Code relating to an absentee ballot deposited with the stub still attached. Unfortunately, while overwhelmingly specific on most procedures, the Code is silent on the crucial point here: When and by whom does the stub on an absentee ballot get removed? To arrive at an answer, we must extrapolate and interpolate from several sections and call upon some general principles from prior case law.

The form- of a ballot is spelled out in the Code and clearly requires consecutively numbered, detachable stubs…