Mississippi Advisory Opinions July 23, 1999: AGO 1999-0351 (July 23, 1999)

Advisory Opinion Text

Mr. Carl L. Mickens

Circuit Clerk

Noxubee County

P. O. Box 431

Macon, Mississippi 39341

Re: Execution of absentee ballot application

Dear Mr. Mickens:

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:

Please provide me with a written opinion of how absentee ballot and application should be handled when a voter signature is made by marking an X as their official signature. Should the person assisting that person print or write their name beside the X and indicate his or her mark.

Section 23-15-627 of the Mississippi Code of 1972 supplies the form for the application for an absentee ballot. Section 23-15-715 requires the applying elector to “execute” the application. We find no statute regarding electors who are unable to sign their name to an absentee ballot application.

In execution of land instruments and other documents, as a general rule, a customary and accepted form of execution by a person unable to sign his or her name is as follows:

His John (X) Doe Witness to mark: Richard Roe Mark

All of the words in the form are written by the witness, with the executing party making the “X” or mark within the parentheses.

We therefore opine that an elector who is unable to sign an absentee ballot application may complete the application by use of a mark and that the witness thereto may write the name of the applying elector around or adjacent to the mark, indicate that the mark is that of the applying elector, and sign the witness's name adjacent to the mark with words identifying the witnesses' signature as a witness to the mark. The witness must also sign the form on the line for the signature of the witness.

Very truly yours,

Mike Moore, Attorney General

Edwin T. Cofer Special Assistant Attorney General