The court fight over the ballot location for the special U.S. Senate election is wasting taxpayers’ money and could affect preparations for the Nov. 4 general election, Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann told Southwest Mississippi Republicans on Tuesday.
A suit filed Sept. 9 in Hinds County Circuit Court by Democratic Pike County election commissioner Trudy Berger wants the high-profile race to fill U.S. Sen. Trent Lott’s unexpired term moved from the bottom of the ballot to the top with other national races.
U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, and former Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove are running to complete the remaining four years of Lott’s unfinished term.
Republican Gov. Haley Barbour appointed Wicker, a former congressman, to fill Lott’s seat until the election. The race is non-partisan, and party affiliations are not listed on the ballot. The Mississippi Supreme Court was expected to hear oral arguments in the case at 11:30 this morning.
The ballot dispute also has received national attention. U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has asked the U.S. Justice Department to intervene in the matter.
According to an Associated Press story on Tuesday, Conyers claimed the decision to put the special election at the bottom of the ballot is an attempt to disenfranchise voters, and a violation of the Voting Rights Act.
“This argument is much ado about absolutely nothing, and it’s costing the taxpayers money,” Hosemann said.
Berger filed the suit after Barbour approved a ballot proposed by Hosemann to put the race for Lott’s unfinished term at the bottom of the sample ballot that was to be sent to the circuit clerks in Mississippi’s 82 counties.
“We’ve cussed and discussed it (the suit), and we can’t come up with a reason for it,” Hosemann said.
“I hope the Supreme Court rules quickly,” Hosemann said. “I hope the Supreme Court’s ruling is the end, so we can get on with the election.”
In an interview with the Enterprise-Journal before the Republican Party meeting, Hosemann said that research done before the ballot was prepared indicated that prior special elections were placed at the bottom of the ballot.
He provided a copy of the ballot from the Nov. 6, 2007, general election where the special election for Berger’s seat was on the bottom of the ballot.
He said the controversy centers on a change in the state’s election law that was made in 2000 and sets the ballot order of the ballot with the national races, such as president, at the top.
All the law says about special elections, he said, is that they be set apart from the other issues on the ballot. Under state law, the secretary of state prepares the sample ballot for the election with the approval of the governor, Hosemann said, adding that he prepared a ballot with the special Senate election at the bottom.
He said Attorney General Jim Hood later called him about putting the special election at the top of the ballot.
Hosemann said he and Hood met with Barbour to discuss the ballots, and two ballots were submitted — one with the special election at the top, and another with the election at the bottom.
“Mr. Hood gave his case for having the election at the top, and he made some good points. I presented the case for having the election at the bottom,” he said.
“It was a choice the governor had to make, and I think he made the right decision,” Hosemann said. “Could it have gone the other way? Sure.”
Soon after the ballot decision was made, Hosemann told area Republicans, Berger filed her suit, and Circuit Judge Tomie Green granted a temporary restraining order stopping Hosemann from mailing the sample ballots.
Hosemann said neither he nor Barbour were notified of the hearing.
“We were not asked to attend the hearing,” he said. “That was a violation of one of our most basic legal rights — the right to confront the person who accuses you of something in a court of law.”
Pike County Circuit Clerk Roger Graves, a Democrat, who attended the Republican Party meeting to answer election questions, said he and the other election commissioners also were unaware that Berger had filed suit. He said none of the other election commissioners were involved in the case.
“This was the act of one commissioner acting on her own,” Graves said.
Hosemann said the ballot question needs to be resolved quickly, adding that any delay could cause problems in election preparations, because his office has to get absentee ballots ready to go the circuit clerks and to go overseas to residents serving in the military.
He said the suit “is an insult to the voters of Mississippi. It’s telling the voters that they don’t have the intelligence to read a ballot.”
Hosemann said that during the 2007 election, which included the special election on a constitutional amendment at the bottom of the ballot, “99 percent of the voters who voted in the election voted on all the items on the ballot.”
Hosemann also discussed other issues involving his office:
• The Secretary of State’s office has placed 7,000 16th Section land leases online. Hosemann said he is working to help school districts get more money for their leases and for the timber on the lands.
• In relation to a recently passed metal theft act, Hosemann said his office is registering salvage yard and recycling center operators, adding that all metal purchases made by the yards are put online and are available for review by law enforcement officers.
He said Mississippi is the first state in the nation to establish such a Web site and is serving as a model for other states. He said copper thefts have declined since the law has been implemented.
• Hosemann discussed plans to revise the state’s business laws, including establishing a business court to hear complicated business suits such as securities and other major cases. The goal, he said is to resolve lawsuits more quickly.
