400 ballots cast absentee in local voting
Published 12:00 am Thursday, October 21, 2004
[10/20/04]With 11 days left for walk-in absentee voting before the general election, a near-normal number of absentee ballots for this year’s type of election had been cast Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, candidates were warned by Mississippi Department of Transportation Director Larry “Butch” Brown that political signs unlawfully placed in state rights-of-way will be removed.
In-person absentee voting in Mississippi will continue during regular weekday hours, 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., and from 8 a.m. until noon Saturday and Oct. 30. The deadline to visit the offices to cast absentee ballots is noon Oct. 30. In Sharkey County, the circuit clerk’s office is scheduled to be open until 7 each night next week.
On election day, Nov. 2, polling places at 22 spots across Warren County, and across the state, will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
By Tuesday, absentee voters had cast about 400 ballots, which Warren County Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree said was about normal for this time in the election cycle.
Absentee voting may also be done by mail. Mailed ballots are due in circuit clerk’s offices by 5 p.m. Nov. 1. They may be requested by mail or telephone only.
“There are a lot of absentee ballots out that haven’t been mailed back,” Ashley-Palmertree said, adding that presidential elections usually draw the largest turnouts and she expected the pace of absentee voting to pick up over the remaining 11 business days.
“If people know they’re going to be out of town on election day, the sooner they can come in and vote absentee the better.”
In the MDOT release, officials cited the possibility of political signs creating hazards “by restricting sight, distracting motorists and eventually becoming litter along our state highways.”
“MDOT work crews are instructed to remove all illegal signs,” a press release said. “The signs will be held for a reasonable time before being disposed of. Sign owners can retrieve their signs from local MDOT maintenance shops without penalty.”
In Warren County, 34,665 people are registered to vote in the general election, Ashley-Palmertree said. That number is 97.7 percent of the 35,476 residents of voting age counted in Warren County in the 2000 Census.
The number of registered voters this year is 31.1 percent higher than the 26,446 reported for primary elections in 1995. The county’s overall population has grown by 2.3 percent since 1990, according to the latest census estimate.
The deadline to register in time for this year’s election passed Oct. 1, and “a ton of new registrations” came in shortly before then, Ashley-Palmertree said. New voter-registrations have resulted in a net gain of registered voters despite the removal since the March party primaries of about 500 people who have died or moved away, she added.
In-person absentee balloting in Madison Parish is scheduled to take place Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.
The deadlines for Louisiana election officials to receive absentee ballots by mail are 4:30 p.m. Nov. 1 for civilians and 4:30 p.m. Nov. 2 for military personnel.
Candidates for president and Congress will be on general-election ballots nationwide.
Mississippi voters will also be able to elect some Supreme Court justices, all county election commissioners and two members of the five-person Board of Trustees of the Vicksburg Warren School District.
The candidates to represent the state’s 2nd Congressional District in Congress are Greenville resident and Warren-Yazoo Community Action Agency worker Clinton B. LeSueur, 35, the Republican challenger; the Reform Party’s Shawn O’Hara; and Democratic incumbent Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, 56, of Bolton.
The candidates for one position on the Supreme Court are Byram attorney “Richard” Ray Grindstaff, 43, and incumbent William L. Waller, 45.
The candidates for the other position are incumbent James Graves; former chancery-court judge Ceola James of Vicksburg; Madison County Circuit Court judge Samac S. Richardson, 57; and former Hinds County Justice Court judge William L. Skinner, 45.
Both positions are elected at-large from the state’s Central District. Candidates for judicial offices in Mississippi may not run as partisan candidates.
Warren County districts 1, to the northeast, and 5, to the southeast, will elect school-board members.
The candidates for the District 1 post are roofing contractor Jerry Boland, 45; Ergon director of system engineering Steven Elwart, 51; Grand Gulf Nuclear Station supervisor Shawn McKeever, 33; Ameristar Casino director of information technology Bryan Pratt, 36; and legal secretary Brenda Theriot, 52.
The candidates for the District 5 post are U.S. Army Corps of Engineers administrator Joanne Gibbs, 48; and Corps engineer Tommy Shelton, 51.
Both posts have been vacated by resignations and neither interim appointee is running for election. School-board members serve staggered six-year terms.
In the only contested race for an election commission post, in District 3, first-time office-seekers Lurline Green, 57, a retired nurse and longtime poll worker and manager, faces hairstylist Patricia Reed, 25. The incumbent, LaShondra Stewart, is not running for re-election.
Incumbent election commissioners Johnny Brewer, 67, of District 1; Retha Summers, 57, of District 2; and Gordon Carr, 81, of District 5, are running unopposed.
The District 4 position, which is being filled by former county supervisor Bill Lauderdale as an interim appointee, is to be declared vacant early next year since no one filed qualifying papers to seek it in this year’s election.
Election commissioners serve four-year terms.