Short answer. Yes. Rule 66, Section 6 provides that all persons who claim to be entitled to the public office, position, or franchise may be made parties, with their respective rights determined in the same action. Multiple claimants can be joined together rather than litigating separate cases over the same office.
What the law says
All persons who claim to be entitled to the public office, position or franchise may be made parties, and their respective rights to such public office, position or franchise determined, in the same action.
Rule 66, Section 6 — Parties and contents of petition against usurpation. Read the full provision →
What a petition against usurpation must set forth
Rule 66, Section 6 governs actions against a person accused of usurping a public office, position, or franchise. It requires the petition to set forth the name of the person who claims to be entitled thereto, if any, with an averment of his right to the same and that the respondent is unlawfully in possession thereof. That baseline requirement contemplates naming at least one claimant to the office alongside the respondent accused of usurping it.
Why more than one claimant can join the same case
The rule then goes further than a single claimant scenario: all persons who claim to be entitled to the public office, position or franchise may be made parties, and their respective rights to such public office, position or franchise determined, in the same action. Where several people each assert a right to the same office, the rule lets them all be brought into one proceeding rather than requiring separate lawsuits, and it lets the court resolve each of their claims within that single action.
Why resolving all the claims together makes sense
Only one person can validly hold a given public office at a time, so claims by competing claimants are inherently connected: resolving one claimant's right to the office necessarily bears on every other claimant's position. Joining all the claimants in a single quo warranto action lets the court weigh their respective rights against each other and against the respondent's claim to the office in one proceeding, rather than reaching potentially inconsistent conclusions across several separate cases about who is actually entitled to occupy the same position.
What joining the claimants means for each of them
Joining multiple claimants in one action does not mean their claims are treated as a single, combined claim. The rule still directs the court to determine their respective rights, meaning each claimant's individual entitlement to the office is assessed on its own footing within that shared proceeding. A claimant who joins the action is not giving up an individual claim by sharing the case with others; the joinder is a procedural mechanism for resolving everyone's competing claims efficiently, not a merger of those claims into one collective right.