Mississippi Advisory Opinions October 29, 1999: AGO 1999-0608 (October 29, 1999)

Advisory Opinion Text

Mr. Earl Tate

Circuit Clerk

P. O. Box 696

Belzoni, Mississippi 39038

Re: Voting assistance

Dear Mr. Tate:

Attorney General Mike Moore has received your request for an Official Opinion from this office and has assigned it to me for research and reply.

Your letter states and asks:

I would like an Attorney General's opinion on the following question.

After a voter has cast his or her ballot, can he or she stand outside thirty (30) feet from the polling place and offer their assistance to every voter that is going inside the polling place?

Your question calls for an interpretation of the relationship between Section 23-15-245 and Section 23-15-549 of the Mississippi Code of 1972 . Section 23-15-245 provides as follows:

It shall be the duty of the manager designated as bailiff to be present at the voting place, and to take such steps as will accomplish the purpose of his appointment, and he shall have full power to do so, and he may summon to his aid all persons present at the voting place. A space thirty (30) feet in every direction from the polls, or the room in which the election is held, shall be kept open and clear of all persons except the election officers and two (2) challengers of good conduct and behavior, selected by each party to detect and challenge illegal voters; and the electors shall approach the polls from one direction, line, door or passage, and depart in another as nearly opposite as convenient.

Section 23-15-549 then provides:

Any voter who declares to the managers of the election that he requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability or inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the voter's choice other than the voter's employer, or agent of that employer, or officer or agent of the voter's union.

We find no prohibition against persons standing more than thirty feet from a polling place and offering assistance to voters going to the polling place to vote. However, such persons may not stop voters, create a disturbance or obstruct any person's access to the polls. Section 23-15-241.

We enclose for your review a copy of MS AG Op., Townsend (November 14, 1991), wherein we emphasized that a voter must freely and knowingly request the assistance of the person of his choice and that anyone who forces his assistance upon a voter for the purpose of influencing how his ballot is marked or who does not allow the voter to freely express how he wishes to vote or who deliberately marks the voter's ballot contrary to the expressed wishes of the voter is guilty of a crime. See also MS AG Op., McCaleb (August 26, 1981) (votes of persons not entitled to assistance under the statute may be challenged).

Very truly yours,

Mike Moore, Attorney General

Edwin T. Cofer, Special Assistant Attorney General