McComb Mayor Quordiniah Lockley is waiting for an opinion from state Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office to determine the process for the 2022 general election set for June 21.
Lockley proposed having the Pike County Election Commission run the election at the most recent work session.
However, Pike County Circuit Clerk Roger Graves suggested for legal reasons tied to the city’s special charter that Lockley appoint inspectors, which is another term for commissioners, and they could agree through a contract to have the county election commission run things.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Lockley said he has not determined whether he would appoint inspectors.
“We’re going to wait until the Attorney General tells us, which should be soon,” he said. “They (inspectors) would definitely need to be appointed by the 15th of February because there is a training they would have to be in.”
Lockley said he has already made calls asking people if they would be willing to serve as inspectors.
City Clerk Ellisha Ford provided an update of the timeline at the meeting.
She said filing begins Jan. 3 and the qualifying deadline is March 1. The primary is May 3, followed by the runoff, if necessary, on May 17. She said political parties handle the primaries.
Selectman Devante Johnson agreed with Graves’ suggestion on how to move forward with the general election. He acknowledged Lockley wanted the Pike County Election Commission to run the general election because of the commissioners’ experience and the resources available, including the voting machines.
“Reading and doing some research, I happen to agree with the circuit clerk,” Johnson said. “I think for us just trying to move forward and just get this done efficiently so we have no hiccups in the road would be to, as he recommended, to do the inspectors and allow them to contract it to the county election commission. I think that still gets what we envision for us in an efficient way. Then we don’t have to worry about the legality of whether we followed our charter.”
Johnson said the inspectors contracting with the Pike County Election Commission would eliminate legal questions when the next term begins July 1.
“We’re going through that battle, we’re going to be from opinion to opinion, office to office,” he said. “One office says this, one office says that, we’re going to get conflicting legal opinions. I think for the best interest of whoever is going to sit here come July 1st that they were duly elected and we did the process the right way.”
Ford said qualifying papers for the current selectmen will be ready Monday and include disbursement forms, dates and timeframes and other items from the Secretary of State’s Office. She said she has been communicating with Lockley, as well as Graves’ office and Gabriel May, who is the elections compliance and training officer from the Secretary of State’s office.
“I’ve been back and forth also in contact with Gabriel May from the Secretary of State’s office,” Ford said. “They do special forms for McComb because you’ve got a special charter and he sent me all of that.”
