Mississippi Advisory Opinions March 12, 2012: No. 2012-00081 (March 12, 2012)

No. 2012-00081.

Dear Mr. McDaniel:

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

Your letter states:

Can a poll worker cause a contested election or face criminal charges for soliciting votes for a candidate during election hours at a voting precinct?

Each county election commission is responsible for conducting all general and special elections in the respective counties. A general or special election may be contested by filing a petition with the appropriate circuit clerk. The contest is decided in a jury trial heard in circuit court. The petition must set forth the grounds upon which the election is contested. One of the grounds may be that a poll worker unlawfully solicited votes for a particular candidate at the polling place thereby contributing to the certification of results that, had it not been for such solicitations, would have been different. The jury would then consider all grounds set forth in the petition and decide which candidate received the greatest number of legal votes.

A poll worker who, in his official capacity, shows partiality in the conduct of an election is guilty of a crime and, upon conviction, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding two years.

Mississippi Code Annotated Section 23-15-951 (Revised 2007) provides in part:

Except as otherwise provided by Section 23-15-955 (legislative) or 23-15-961 (primaries), a person desiring to contest the election of another person returned as elected to any office within any county, may, within twenty (20) days after the election, file a petition in the office of the clerk of the circuit court of the county, setting forth the grounds upon which the election is contested; .... and the court shall, at the first term, cause an issue to be made up and tried by a jury, and the verdict of the jury shall find the person having the greatest number of legal votes at the election. ... .

Section 97-13-19 provides:

If any manager, clerk, or any other officer whatever, assisting or engaged in conducting any election, or charged with any duty in reference to any election, shall designedly omit to do any official act required by law, or designedly do any illegal act in relation to any general or special election, by which act or omission the votes taken at any such election in any district shall be lost, or the electors thereof shall be deprived of their suffrage at such election, or shall designedly do any act which shall render such election void, or shall be guilty of any corrupt conduct or partiality in is official capacity at such election, he shall, upon conviction, be imprisoned, in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding two years. (Emphasis added)

Sincerely,

JIM HOOD, ATTORNEY GENERAL

By:

Phil Carter

Special Assistant Attorney General