Mississippi Advisory Opinions March 24, 2006: No. 2006-00055 (March 24, 2006)

No. 2006-00055.

DOCK 2006-00055

Dear Mr. Lawrence:

Attorney General Jim Hood has received your letter of request and assigned it to me for research and reply. Your letter states:

As City Attorney for the City of Crystal Springs, Mississippi, I am requesting an opinion on the following facts and questions.

Facts:

The Mississippi Legislature enacted certain amendments to state election laws pursuant to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). All references are directed towards state and county elections. I can find no direction of the applicability of HAVA or MS statutes which were amended to municipal elections.

Questions:

1. Are municipalities required to use voting machines or may municipalities continue to use paper ballots in elections held after January 1, 2006?

2. Are municipalities authorized to discontinue maintaining separate voting rolls after January 1, 2006 with municipal and county rolls being unified and maintained by the Circuit Clerk's Office?

In response to your first question, we find nothing in HAVA or elsewhere that mandates that municipalities utilize voting machines, electronic voting systems, optical mark reading equipment or direct recording electronic voting equipment as is the case for counties.

In a telephone conversation you informed this office that the City of Crystal Springs has been conducting its elections by paper ballots and has never effectuated a change to a different system pursuant to state law and had that change approved or "precleared" by the U.S. Department of Justice pursuant to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Therefore, the City of Crystal Springs may continue to use paper ballots in elections held after January 1, 2006.

In response to your second question, Section 23-15-153 (5) provides:

The county registrar shall prepare the pollbooks and the county commissioners of election shall prepare the registration books of each municipality located within the county pursuant to an agreement between the county and each municipality in the county.

The county commissioners of election and the county registrar shall be paid by each municipality for the actual cost of preparing registration books and pollbooks for the municipality and shall pay each county commissioner of election a per diem in the amount provided for in subsection (2) of this section for each day or period of not less than five (5) hours accumulated over two (2) or more days the commissioners are actually employed in preparing the registration books for the municipality, not to exceed five (5) days. The county commissioners of election and county registrar shall provide copies of the registration books and pollbooks to the municipal clerk of each municipality in the county. The municipality shall pay the county registrar for preparing and printing the pollbooks. A municipality may secure "read only" access to the Statewide Centralized Voter System and print its own pollbooks using this information; however, county commissioners of election shall remain responsible for preparing registration books for municipalities and shall be paid for this duty in accordance with this subsection.

The above quoted statutory provisions became effective January 1, 2006 and specifically requires the county registrars to prepare the poll books and the county election commissions to prepare the registration books for each municipality within their respective counties pursuant to an agreement between each county and each municipality in the county. It gives the municipalities the option to secure "read only" access to the Statewide Centralized Voter System and print its own poll books.

Sincerely,

JIM HOOD, ATTORNEY GENERAL

By:

Phil Carter Special Assistant Attorney General