High Court Ruling Forces County To Reprint Ballots

High Court Ruling Forces County To Reprint Ballots

By David Howell

Editor

WATER VALLEY – The state’s highest court issued an order Thursday directing Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hoseman to add Chicago businessman Willie Wilson as a Democratic presidential primary candidate on the March 8 ballot. Also included in the order was a directive for counties using paper ballots to prepare new ballots that include Wilson as a candidate.

This means almost 6,000 ballots already printed for the county’s voters had to be tossed and new ballots printed, according to Circuit Clerk Daryl Burney. 

The Mississippi Supreme Court order was handed down Friday and had the county’s election officials scrambling over the weekend.

“We worked late Friday and Saturday morning to comply with the order,” Burney told the Herald. The county’s purchasing clerk, Bonnie Hill, even got in on the fun, going to the office Saturday morning to place the order for the new ballots to ensure they would be ready in time for the election.

Burney added that the initial ballots were ready 45 days prior to the election, as directed by state law to allow military and out-of-state voters plenty of time to vote.  Per the justices’ order, Wilson’s name will not be added to the absentee ballots and Wilson has waived any right to challenge absentee ballots going forward. This means the county will have different ballots when it comes time to tally the votes – the absentee ballots that do not list Wilson as a candidate and the election day ballots that include Wilson.

“This is the first time I have seen a candidate added after the deadline,” Burney told the Herald.

The Supreme Court ruling overturned the state Democratic Party’s decision to reject a petition by Wilson to be included as a candidate in the state’s primary. Also overturned by the Supreme Court was a trial court’s decision that had supported the party’s decision. 

Confusion aside, Burney reminded voters can continue to cast an absentee ballot in the circuit clerk’s office during normal hours the remainder of the week. The circuit clerk offices in Water Valley and Coffeeville will also be open from 8 a.m. until noon for absentee voting, which is the deadline. In Mississippi, registered voters are eligible to vote absentee because of age, health or work demands, or their affiliation with the U.S. armed forces. For example, voters who will be outside their county of residence on election day are entitled to vote by absentee ballot.