Walthall County Election Commissioner Frederick Magee and incumbent District 2 Supervisor Ken Craft went before the Walthall County Democratic Executive Committee on Monday night concerning the qualification of Magee to run against Craft in the Democratic primary for District 2 supervisor.
The deadline for candidates to file qualifying papers was Feb. 27. Craft petitioned the committee for a hearing to keep Magee from being on the list of Democrats running for the four-year term, citing a Mississippi state statute that reads:
“A commissioner of election of any county may be a candidate for any other office at any election … provided that he or she has resigned from the office of election commissioner before he or she qualifies for the office which he or she desires to seek.”
Craft said Magee did not resign as election commissioner in time to run for supervisor.
Magee filed his qualifying papers on the 27th, but his resignation was not officially recognized until the next Walthall County Board of Supervisors meeting on March 2. Craft said this disqualifies Magee.
“He was supposed to resign that position before qualifying for any countywide election,” Craft said. “I’m just going by the law.”
State Rep. David Myers, D-McComb, represented Magee at the hearing.
“Ken Craft’s assertion is that Magee didn’t resign in time,” Myers said, “which in fact he did.”
Myers said that Magee’s papers, which were all dated Feb. 26, were all filed in the proper offices on the 27th.
The glitch is that Magee’s resignation as election commissioner could not be made official until the board of supervisors met the following Monday. The supervisors approved Magee’s resignation.
Myers told the Democratic committee, “The intent of the law concerning qualification for election commissioners is to make sure that a commissioner has nothing to do with the election process after they have filed for candidacy.”
“Once Magee filed his resignation with the board of supervisors,” Myers added, “he had no more to do with the election commission office. His papers were submitted to the circuit clerk’s office on the day of the deadline. He filed all necessary paperwork and resigned the position on Feb. 27.”
Magee said he was satisfied with the hearing and feels positive about the outcome. He and Craft will get the Democratic committee’s final decision Wednesday at 5 p.m.
“Everyone got their side of their story heard,” Magee said. “I was really proud to see the public coming out to support each of us. I think Craft and I each want to have a good clean race.”
The county Democratic executive committee gave Circuit Clerk Vernon Alford a preliminary list of candidates for the primary, and Magee’s name was not included. However, committee chairman Cliff Dawson asked Alford not to file the information with the state until after the results of Monday’s hearing.
