Opinion of the Justices

To His Excellency the Governor and the Honorable Council:

' Your resolution presents to this court the question whether an otherwise statutorily authorized recount pursuant to RSA 59:101 (Supp. 1975) may proceed in the face of a town’s innocent destruction of its ballots, and, if so, whether the original certified ballot tally of the town should be included in the recount.

Subsequent to the submission of the original question, the court was advised that ballots in two additional towns were also inadvertently destroyed after they had been counted on election night and an official return…