Mississippi Advisory Opinions January 26, 1978: 1978-0050 (January 26, 1978)

Advisory Opinion Text

Mayor Floyd E. Johnson

Yazoo City, Mississippi 39194

Municipalities — Elections

Dear Mayor Johnson:

Attorney General Summer is in receipt of your letter of January 23, 1978, and has assigned it to me for research and reply.

Your letter stated:

“As Yazoo City is presently under the ward system, or / as each Alderman candidate must live within the ward to be eligible to run as a City Alderman, please advise if a candidate desires to run as an Independent if it will be necessary to secure sufficient signatures from those within the specified ward that he lives in or can the list include residents throughout the City.”

Electors may qualify to run as independent candidates in a municipal general election by petition made under the provisions of Section 3260, Mississippi Code of 1942, Annotated and Recompiled, which appears in the main volume. This section provides in part:

“...The commissioner shall also have printed on the ballot in any general or special election the name of any candidate who, not having been nominated by a political party, shall have been requested to be a candidate for any office by a petition filed with said commissioner not less than forty (40) days prior to the election, and signed by not less than the following number of qualified electors:...

(e) For an office elected by the qualified electors of a county, a senatorial or floatorial district, or a municipality having a population of one thousand (1,000) or more, not less than fifty (50) qualified electors.

(f) For an office elected by the qualified electors of a supervisors district or a municipality having a population of less than one thousand (1,000), not less than fifteen (15) qualified electors.

Unless the petition required above shall be filed not less than forty (40) days prior to the election, the name of the person requested to be a candidate, unless nominated by a political party, shall not be placed upon the ballot....”

It is understood that the candidates in the Yazoo City municipal elections will be for the offices of mayor and four aldermen and that aldermen are to be elected for each of four wards; further, that each alderman will be elected for a ward by the vote of electors of that ward only.

Given these facts, it is the opinion of this office that for an elector to qualify as an independent candidate for the office of Yazoo City alderman the names on the electors' petition must be those of qualified electors of the particular ward for which the petitioner is a candidate.

Previous opinions issued by this office on this matter were based on the unique facts and circumstances of each case and any such opinions interpreted as being contrary to this opinion are hereby overruled.

With kind regards, I am

Very truly yours,

A. F. Summer Attorney General.