By John Howell

Panola County’s Democratic Executive Committee meeting for an election challenge hearing in the Batesville courtroom Tuesday denied District Two Supervisor candidate William Pride Jr. in his request for a new election.

Pride filed a challenge after an August 21 ballot canvas revealed unopened absentee ballots and other alleged irregularities in District Two voting precincts. In the August 4 Democratic Party Primary Election, incumbent Supervisor Vernice Avant won 626 votes; Pride 472 and Tim Holliday 122, giving Avant a majority of votes to become the nominee.

County Democratic Party Chair Lourine Robinson presided during Tuesday evening’s hearing. Attorneys for both candidates spoke briefly, followed by a meeting of the committee in executive session. On Wednesday Attorney David Walker, vice-chairman of the county executive committee, provided to The Panolian a copy of the committee’s order denying the election contest.

At the opening of Tuesday’s hearing, attorney Willie Griffin, representing Avant, challenged the legality of the executive committee hearing on a procedural matter, citing a portion of Mississippi law that he said took the hearing out of the committee’s jurisdiction if not held within 10 days of receiving notice of the contest. After that the challenger is required to file an action in court, he said.

“The committee loses its jurisdiction after ten days,” Griffin added.

Robinson allowed the hearing to continue following Griffin’s remarks.

“On August 24, my client presented to this body in appropriate manner a petition to contest the election,” said Pride’s attorney, Gerald Munford. “They had 20 days to do that.”

Munford cited five issues that he said were revealed in the canvassing.

“We found that there were 25 absentee ballots that were accepted but were never counted,” he said. “There was a 21-vote difference that would have determined whether there would need to be a runoff between the top vote getter, Mrs. Avant, and the second vote getter, which would be Mr. Pride.”

Examination of the precinct boxes and poll books further revealed, Munford said, absentee witnessing irregularities, a missing absentee ballot in the South Sardis precinct ballot box, four absentee ballots but only three absentee applications and votes unaccounted for in the Longtown box; and missing signatures and the opening of a ballot box during the election at the Curtis precinct. Munford said that a sixth issue was failure to use electronic voting devices at some District Two voting precincts.

“We think that a combination of all those issues create an issue of whether the people of District Two’s votes were realized on August 4; for those reasons we ask for a new election,” Munford said.

Griffin, during his remarks to the committee, restated the procedural objections he cited earlier and then denied each of the challenger’s allegations.

“He (Munford) said that there are a number of ballots that were accepted but not counted. … Who cast those ballots? Were they qualified electors of the county?” Griffin said. “They don’t even know that. It doesn’t tell us anything. … They want you to go in there and do a fishing expedition for these so-called ballots without even identifying … whether or not they were qualified electors of the very supervisor’s district they are asking you to review them in,” he continued, urging committee members to deny Pride’s request for a new election.

The executive committee voted that the challenger did not pursue the hearing within 10 days, and denied the allegations of voting irregularities, according to the order.

“The issue of opening and counting any absentee ballots was not adjudicated,” the order continued.

“We don’t think the hearing was fair in that no witnesses were allowed to testify,” Munford said Wednesday after receiving notice of the committee’s decision. He said that he would be consulting with his client about a decision on moving forward with the challenge.