Mississippi Advisory Opinions March 04, 1987: 19870304 (March 04, 1987)

Advisory Opinion Text

Mr. Cayce DePoyster

Election Commissioner

Route 1

Marietta, Mississippi 38856

Dear Mr. DePoyster:

Attorney General Edwin Lloyd Pittman has received your request for an opinion for this office and has assigned it to the undersigned for research and reply. In your letter you ask the following:

I am seriously considering running for a county office this year. I am currently serving as an Election Commissioner of Prentiss County. There seems to be some question as to when I would have to resign this position in order to seek another office.

Would you please render a decision as to whether I can qualify and when I would have to resign the commissioner's post?

In response to your inquiry, Miss.Code Ann. Section 23-15-217 (Supp.1986), Special Pamphlet) states in part:

A commissioner of election of any county shall not be a candidate for any office at any election for which he may have been elected or with reference to which he has acted as such; and all votes cast for any such person at such election shall be illegal and shall not be counted except that he may be a candidate for the office of county election commissioner.

In accord with an opinion issued to Honorable Herman Cockrell, dated February 11, 1987, if you participated in the first meeting of the election commission in 1987 you are disqualified from running for any other office in the 1987 primary and general elections.

We trust the above will be of assistance to you.

Sincerely,

Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Attorney General.

Catherine Walker Underwood, Assistant Attorney General.