Attorneys for Gov. Haley Barbour said they will file a quick appeal if a judge rejects his plan to put a special U.S. Senate election near the bottom of the November ballot.
As Circuit Judge Tomie Green left the Hinds County Courthouse on Thursday night, she said she will file her ruling in the ballot dispute Friday. She would not say what she has decided.
Local election officials, meanwhile, are faced with conflicting instructions about what to do as they prepare for the Nov. 4 election.
The secretary of state’s office distributed the Barbour-approved sample ballot to the 82 counties late Wednesday. The disputed ballot has the special election for Trent Lott’s old Senate seat near the bottom.
Democratic Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said Thursday that he has advised election commissioners to put the special Senate election near the top of the ballot, just under a regular election for the state’s other U.S. Senate seat.
Sam Begley, an attorney for Democrats, said in Green’s courtroom Thursday that Barbour and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann are playing politics by making voters search for the special Senate race. Barbour and Hosemann are both Republicans.
Begley said Hosemann’s staff worked “after hours, under cover of night” to distribute a sample ballot to local election officials before the courts have resolved a lawsuit challenging the ballot order.
“Shame on them,” Begley said.
John Henegan, an attorney representing Barbour and Hosemann, responded: “The secretary of state was discharging his duty” to distribute a sample ballot 55 days before the election.
Henegan told Green a 2000 state law dictates the order of races on ballots – national, statewide, state district, legislative, countywide, county district.
Henegan argued that when a special election is held on the same day as a general election, as will happen this year, the law specifies the special race should be distinguished from the general election races. He said “state law is totally silent” about whether special elections should be listed among the general election races or at the end of a ballot. And, Henegan said, it’s the “historical practice” in the state to put the special elections at the end of the ballot.
Green told Henegan she wasn’t buying the argument about historical practice.
Sun Herald
9/11/8
Magnolia Tribune
