With less than a week before qualifying begins for McComb’s 2022 elections, questions about the process are still being answered.
Mayor Quordiniah Lockley proposed last week to have the Pike County Election Commission run the June 21 general election, but questions about the legality of that arose.
Inspectors, which is another term for city election commissioners, oversaw previous general elections.
Pike County Circuit Clerk Roger Graves said Monday that he is not sure if McComb’s special charter would allow the city to do away with its own election commission.
“According to what I got from the Secretary of State’s office, McComb is the only special charter municipality that uses the word inspectors in their charter,” he said.
Graves referred to a state law that Lockley brought up last week that would allow the city to enter into an agreement with the county to run the election. However, he said the code reads municipal election commissioners and he does not know if that applies to McComb since “inspectors” run elections.
Graves said Lockley could appoint three inspectors and they could agree to have the Pike County Election Commission run things.
“If the inspectors would contract with the election commissioners, we’ll accomplish the same thing,” Graves said. “His (Lockley) main thing is to get assistance from the Pike County election commissioners.”
Lockley was open to Graves’ idea.
“He and I talked,” Lockley said. “That is an option that is available. However, I’m going to take that into advisement. I will talk to the Attorney General’s office and the Secretary of State’s office. I will make up my mind as to what the best route will be. That’s just an option.”
Lockley initially proposed having the Pike County Election Commission run the general election because of its experience and resources, including voting machines.
Selectmen will have an opportunity to vote on how the elections will be handled at tonight’s meeting.
City Administrator David Myers also clarified there will not be a runoff for the June 21 general election.
Runoffs are required if a candidate fails to receive at least 50% of the vote plus one vote.
Myers said McComb usually only has two candidates in the general election — a Democrat and a Republican. However, the addition of an independent or third-party candidate — assuming a Democrat and a Republican run — could affect the outcome to where no candidate gets the required majority.
And there would be no time for voters to return to the polls since the new term begins July 1.
Qualifying begins Jan. 1, but a deadline has not been set. The primaries are May 3 and the runoffs for each primary are May 17.
McComb’s elections kept a similar schedule four years ago, but only two candidates were in the general election, so it wasn’t an issue.
“McComb has always been a two-party system,” Myers said. “Typically, there’s only two people that run in the general election. However, if there’s a third person running in the election, yeah, it could be there won’t be a 50%-plus-one achieved. Therefore, the highest vote-getter wins.
“According to a charter, there is no requirement for a runoff in a general election, so that scenario could very well be true,” he said.
Selectman Ronnie Brock raised the issue that several residents and potential candidates may not know where they live for the primary and general election. A new redistricting map was recently adopted.
“We just had redistricting and nobody has been notified of what ward they live in,” he said. “So the circuit clerk also has a part to play. The registration card is supposed to go out by the circuit clerk so everybody will know where they live and they can determine what they want to run for.”
Graves said voter registration cards are sent to each voter in Pike County 60 days prior to the primary.
“If you send them out earlier than that, people didn’t realize they got them,” he said. “We’ve got a little time. We’ve got to move those voters over.”
Myers said voters with questions can call the city clerk's office.
“Of course, we published the map for the last 30 days in the Enterprise-Journal so we would encourage people if they have any questions as to where they live in terms of what ward, then they can field those questions to us here at city hall at this point,” he said. “As far as notifying folks where they live in terms of their new voter registration card, that’s a process that our city clerk is going to work with the county to make sure that’s done.”
Lockley said it is Graves’ responsibility to inform voters of their new wards.
“Understand, many years ago, the city of McComb opted out to allow the circuit clerk to handle that,” Lockley said. “Therefore, I am allowing them to handle that. I will not get involved at all.”
