Facundas

This is a proceeding in mandamus to compel the defendant, as city clerk of the city of Taft, to certify the sufficiency of a petition for the recall of two trustees of that city.

The only point urged on behalf of the respondent relates to the form of the recall petition. He claims that the petition does not comply with that portion of the statute which reads as follows: “The signatures to the petition need not all be appended to one paper. . . . Each such separate paper shall have attached thereto an affidavit made by a qualified elector of the city or town, . . . and sworn to before an officer competent to administer oaths, stating that the affiant circulated that particular paper and saw written the signatures appended thereto; and that according to the best information and belief of the affiant, each is the genuine signature of the person whose name purports to he thereunto subscribed, and of a qualified elector of the city or town. ...” (Stats. (Ex. Sess.) 1911, p. 128; Deering’s Gen. Laws (1915 ed.), p. 1219.)

The petition as filed consists of five sections, all fastened together. Each of those sections consists of three or more sheets fastened together under a separate…