Due to recent court action, Tallahatchie County voters residing within Education District 7 will be asked to return to the polls for a do-over of November’s school board election.
The date of that revote will not be set until state officials are satisfied that certain irregularities, including ballot problems, within the district have been resolved.
In his seven-page, Feb. 27 order tossing the results of the Nov. 8, 2022, election for the East Tallahatchie School District Board of Trustees seat, special Judge Jeff Weill Sr. of Hinds County ruled that numerous issues made “the will of the voters in the election ... impossible to discern.”
Weill had been appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court to preside over a bench trial for a contest of the Nov. 8 election filed by candidate James “Honey” Johnson, who finished last among a three-person field.
Alleging multiple errors and improper actions, Johnson, 70, had filed his challenge on Nov. 28, a day before the scheduled Nov. 29 runoff pitting top vote-getter Tawanda S. Shannon, 48, against Santrail Hunt-Kuykendall, 37.
In the runoff, Hunt-Kuykendall enjoyed a narrow victory over Shannon and on Jan. 6 was sworn in as ED7 trustee.
While Weill’s order invalidated the outcome of the Nov. 8 election, rendering the runoff results moot, Weill ruled that Hunt-Kuykendall will continue to serve until the new election winner is certified.
The Nov. 8 general election featured a contested congressional race and several other offices for which candidates were unopposed, so every precinct in the county was open for business on that day.
At several precincts, poll workers were to use two different ballot styles — one that featured the ED7 race, for residents who live within the boundaries of that district, and another which did not. Poll books used by the poll managers were to dictate which ballot style a voter should receive, and the voter access card that would be inserted into the voting machine would then be encoded with the proper ballot.
Weill, as Johnson had charged in his contest filing, found that a significant number of voters were not given correct ballots.
As a result, some voters who live in ED7 were not allowed to vote in the school board race while some nonresidents of the district were permitted to do so.
In one example cited by Weill’s order, at the Spring Hill precinct, 51 voters were allowed to cast a ballot in ED7 although they were not residents of the district. All 81 machine voters there received the same ballot access card.
Among other issues noted:
• A total of 18 absentee ballots accepted by the Resolution Board should have been rejected and not counted because those ballots did not meet the requirements of the state’s absentee voting law.
• A “walk list” generated from the State Election Management System (SEMS) for use by candidates prior to the election did not match up with poll books used by poll managers on Nov. 8. Therefore, many voters were not allowed to vote in the ETSD election but should have been.
• Some reports were made to election officials that due to problems at various precincts, some voters who felt that they were entitled to vote in ED7 were not provided with a provisional affidavit ballot that would have included that race, and many of those left the precinct without casting a ballot. Some did vote, using the inappropriate ballot, although they were unable to weigh in on the ED7 race as they were entitled.
• There were “multiple violations of statutory code provisions regarding the securing and maintaining of chain of custody.” Several ballots were reportedly mishandled and either counted, or not, contrary to the law.
• Based on an evidentiary review, votes certified for precincts Charleston 1 and Charleston 3 did not match the actual votes cast. In 3, Johnson was shorted six votes and Hunt-Kuykendall was given six extra votes, resulting in a net change of 12 votes between Johnson and Hunt-Kuykendall, who finished 19 votes ahead of Johnson.
• There was confusion as to which of two different maps of ED7 presented at trial by Circuit Clerk Daphane Neal featured an actual depiction of the current boundaries of the school board district.
“Without an accurate description of the boundaries of the district, it is impossible to determine the voters who are entitled to vote in the election of their trustee,” Weill’s order noted.
In ruling that a new election should be held in ED7, Weill stated that “actions must be taken by Tallahatchie County to ensure that the new election will be limited to only voters who actually reside in the district and that every voter who resides in the district will be allowed to vote and given the proper ballot.”
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Weill stipulated that the following four conditions must be met before a new election is held:
1) A search of the records of the county shall be conducted to find the latest adopted boundaries of the districts in the ETSD, and a proper map of those boundaries shall be prepared for the public’s use.
2) All poll managers who are to manage a precinct in the new election shall be properly trained on the concept and the process of handling split precincts in an election.
3) All Resolution Board members shall be specially trained in the absentee ballot voting laws and the proper procedures concerning both acceptance and rejection of a ballot cast by an absentee voter.
4) The discrepancy which exists in the SEMS program which allows one report to include voters as being in the district (the “walk list”) and another report to exclude voters (the poll book) shall be identified and resolved.
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Weill’s order noted that, per law, Gov. Tate Reeves will issue a “Writ of Election” setting the date for the ED7 vote.
Reeves’ press secretary, Shelby Wilcher, told The Sun-Sentinel on March 16 that the governor’s office received a copy of Weill’s order and final judgment on March 2.
She said the governor’s office contacted the Elections Division within the Mississippi secretary of state’s office to discuss the actions that the county must take in advance of the special election.
“When we receive confirmation that the corrective actions have been taken by the county to allow the special election to proceed, the governor will promptly set an election date,” Wilcher noted.
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In a response to the question about the two ED7 maps, Neal said she and ETSD Superintendent Marvell Hudson have been in discussions regarding the district maps, which appear to represent two different redistricting cycles, leading to some confusion.
“I want to know which map is which,” she noted.
“The judge, in that order, said all the lines need to be cleared up,” Neal added. “The school district board is going to pretty much have to let us know what lines they are officially running under.”
She continued, “Once the clerk is given the correct information from the school board, the information will be accurately added to the SEMS system,” noting that she will “make sure that everybody is ... put in their right district.”
Neal added that voters need not worry about the countywide elections this year, explaining that all county district lines are correct in SEMS.
“We did that already.”
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LaTrenda “Trina” Bounds, District 4 election commissioner and chairperson of the five-member Tallahatchie County Election Commission, declined to comment on the matter of ballots being mishandled at split precincts.
The Election Commission oversees county general elections after party primaries. Commissioners also hire and train poll workers and Resolution Board members, prepare ballot boxes and voting machines and purge voter rolls, among other duties.
Bounds said the commission diligently trains poll workers and other election officials within their purview before every election.
“Everybody is trained on what to do, the proper procedure of everything,” she said.
“I thought we were doing pretty good as far as training,” she added.
Bounds said she could not assign specific blame for the ED7 issues during the ’22 election.
“I just wish that everything would have been caught beforehand, whatever was going on,” she noted.
Nonetheless, Bounds said election commissioners will be ready for a new election.
“Whatever the judge said, we’re going to redo the election,” she added.
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The three ED7 candidates voiced mixed feelings last week.
Johnson said he is “glad” to see another election ordered, noting that Nov. 8 voting “was unfair for all the citizens.”
Getting the kinks ironed out of the election process is “going to help everybody,” he said, adding, “I want a fair race for everybody.”
The present school trustee, Hunt-Kuykendall, said she is trying to take it all in stride.
“What God has for me is for me,” she noted. “I’m just going to get back out there and do it again. It is what it is.”
Shannon went to the point.
“Let’s pray all the issues have been fixed and the will of the voters in Education District 7 will be reflected in the results,” Shannon noted.
Hunt-Kuykendall, Johnson and Shannon were competing for a position being vacated at the end of 2022 by one-term incumbent Tameka McIntyre, who did not seek reelection.
UPDATE (Oct. 5, 2023): Judge Jeff Weill ruled Sept. 25, 2023, that a special election for ED7 would be held on Jan. 9, 2024.
