Columbus NAACP president Edward DuBose filed a complaint Wednesday in Muscogee Superior Court about last week's sales tax vote.

The petition makes two requests:

•  A stay of the vote's certification.

•  An investigation into alleged voting irregularities.

State law requires a hearing to be scheduled within 20 days. A judge is expected to be assigned the case Monday.

The Nov. 4 referendum passed with a margin of less than 1 percent. The 1 percent sales tax would start April 1 and last for five years, or collect about $149 million, to fund Muscogee County School District improvements.

The Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registrations certified the referendum result last Thursday with a final margin of 280 votes: 11,538 to 11,258.

Ken Barfield was the lone dissenter in the board's 3-1 decision. He objected to the handling of a computer chip that contained 477 votes and came out of one of the four advance voting machines.

But the petition DuBose filed specifies a different problem. It alleges "wide-spread" complaints that citizens who voted "no" saw their voting machines register a "yes." DuBose told the Ledger-Enquirer that assertion is based on three complaints from voters who cast ballots at the Spencer High precinct. Only one of those voters has signed an affidavit, "but we're still trying to encourage the two others to step forward," DuBose said.

Nancy Boren, executive director of the elections board, stands behind the announced totals. She said the complaint at Spencer High stems from a problem that arose with one electronic voting machine shortly after the polls opened at 7 a.m.

"The poll manager told me a voter said every time he tried to vote, it wouldn't register his vote correctly," Boren said. "So I told the poll manager to shut that machine down, cancel the voter's ballot and let him vote with another voter access card on another machine."

Boren said the faulty machine had three votes registered when it was shut down.

DuBose said the petition doesn't mention other alleged irregularities because NAACP officials and their lawyer, Ron Garnett of Augusta, didn't have time to document them before Wednesday's petition deadline.

But when the hearing is held, DuBose promised, evidence about a previously reported alleged irregularity will be presented:

Mary Myles said she and her husband saw orange cones blocking the driveway entrance to the voting precinct at Rigdon Road Elementary School about 90 minutes before the polls closed at 7 p.m.

Boren, however, said the poll manager removed the cones by 4 p.m. and isn't aware of any other complaints. She said Rigdon Road Elementary puts those cones in the driveway every school day between 2:15 and 3:15 p.m. to control traffic during student pick-up time.