Mississippi Advisory Opinions September 22, 1981: AGO 000003216 (September 22, 1981)

AGO 000003216.

Dear Mr. Tatum:

Attorney General Bill Allain has received your letter and has assigned it to me for research and reply. Your letter states:

"I have been requested by the Tippah County Board of Election Commissioners and Mr. Eddie Barkley, Circuit Clerk, to follow up on a phone conversation which they had with you recently about the validity of signatures on a Petition which had been presented to a local governing body. It appeared from looking at the signatures that one person had attempted to sign for two or more parties on the Petition. Your explanation to them on the phone was that the Tippah County Board of Election Commissioners would be the sole judge of which signature in the above described situation is the authentic signature. Further, it was their understanding that they were vested, as the Election Commission, with the authority to let the first signature in any group of signatures aforedescribed count as a valid signature and to invalidate the balance of the similarly written signatures.

"We are in receipt of a courtesy copy of an opinion of yours given to Mrs. Diane T. Stewart, Deputy City Clerk, Horn Lake, Mississippi 38637, dated March 23, 1981, which touches on this matter and cites Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 1-3-75 (1972); however, our questions as outlined above, relate to the authority as a Commission to select the method of determining the valid signature.

"We would very much appreciate it if you could at your earl est convenience mail us written confirmation of the above so that we will have a basis for using this procedure in regard to validating signatures on Petitions signed and presented to our local governing body." The mentioned courtesy copy of a letter to Mrs. Diane T. Stewart, includes this:

"...In Example No. 1 above, one person has attempted to sign for two parties, i.e. the signing party and the signing party's spouse. As you stated, it is impossible to determine without extraneous inquiry whether the husband or the wife actually signed the petition. In this case, you should, in our opinion, determine which spouse actually signed the petition by comparing the signature with the voter registration books and then count the spouse who actually signed the petition and disregard the name of the nonsigning spouse.

"The problem in Example No. 2 is that the same person apparently has signed both names. In this case, you should determine which person actually signed the petition by comparing the signatures with the voter registration books and then count the signature that is genuine and disregard the other signature. ..."

The opinion expressed in the two cited paragraphs of the letter to Mrs. Stewart concerning how to determine the validity of signatures on a petition would be applicable to the Tippah County Board of Election Commissioners when the Board acts pursuant to its lawful duty to determine the validity of signatures on a petition.

With kind regards, I am

Very truly yours,

BILL ALLAIN, ATTORNEY GENERAL

BY:

S.E. Birdsong, Jr. Assistant Attorney General

SEB,Jr./mg