Mississippi Advisory Opinions August 08, 2005: AGO 000016709 (August 8, 2005)

AGO 000016709.

Dear Commissioner Griffith:

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

Should anyone other than the circuit clerk (being custodian over all voting and election records) and the chairman of the election commission have keys to the election commission room. Also, should access to this room be limited to a workday (8-5) weekdays only.

In response to your inquiry, Mississippi Code Annotated Section 23-15-135 (Revised 2001) provides:

The registration books of the several voting precincts of each county and the pollbooks heretofore in use shall be delivered to the registrar of the county, and they, together with the registration books and pollbooks hereafter made, shall be records of his office, and he shall carefully preserve the same as such; and after each election the pollbooks shall be speedily returned to the office of the registrar.

Section 23-15-153 provides in part:

At the following times the commissioners of election shall meet at the office of the registrar and carefully revise the registration books and the pollbooks of the several voting precincts, and shall erase from those books the names of all persons erroneously on the books, or who have died, removed or become disqualified as electors from any cause; and shall register the names of all persons who have duly applied to be registered and have been illegally denied registration:

...

The circuit clerk, as the county registrar, is responsible for insuring that voter registration records are preserved and secured in his or her office. Obviously, the county election commissioners must have access to those records in order for them to perform their statutory duties. Each county registrar must use sound discretion in determining whether the chairman of the election commission should be the only one other than the registrar to have a key to the room where the voter registration records are stored. Reasonable hours of access to the room would be established by the Circuit Clerk, in his or her discretion.

Sincerely,

JIM HOOD, ATTORNEY GENERAL

By:

Phil Carter Special Assistant Attorney General