Accuracy in Aug. 7 Lee vote contested 

8/30/2007 6:06:35 AM
Daily Journal
By LEESHA FAULKNER
Daily Journal

TUPELO – Lee County Democratic Party chairman Kelly Mims will hold a hearing next week to determine the accuracy of the Aug. 7 primary.

The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Sept. 6 on the second floor of the Lee County Justice Center.

Mims said Wednesday he’s received a petition signed by a group of voters contesting the primary’s voter count.

“They involve several little things,” Mims said, adding that he’d subpoena deputies with the circuit clerk’s office who worked with the election tickets and the ESS machine representative on duty that day.

The petition lists Stephanie Nichols as spokeswoman for the group. However, she declined to talk about specifics until after the hearing.

“We are just contesting the accuracy of the votes.

We’d rather let it run its course,” she said, adding that the issues cover several candidates in different contests.

The issues listed as points of challenge to the primary election include:

• During the election, votes were “reversed” between incumbent supervisor Tommie Lee Ivy and his challenger, Jeff Ivy. The error was pointed out to an election commissioner and later an executive county commission member. The votes were “reversed” again and put Tommie Lee Ivy back in the lead.

• Voters who had cast ballots in previous elections with no problems discovered they weren’t on poll sheets for this election. They were told to fill out an affidavit ballot and to go to the Justice Center, which meant it took some people up to 75 minutes to cast their votes.

“Now this brings into question as to the disenfranchisement of voters in Lee County that just turned and walked away, avoiding the confusion and the time-consuming procedure they were asked to follow so they could exercise their right to vote.”

• A separate register wasn’t kept for affidavit ballots. All voters signed the same register as voting, which raises questions about balancing the register to the count taken off the voting machines.

• At least one voter at Palmetto noticed the machine counter didn’t roll over to show he had cast a ballot. He asked poll workers about it. They opened the ballot box, took his ballot out and let him submit it again to assure him the vote was counted.

Contact Daily Journal county-courts reporter Leesha Faulkner at 678-1590 or