Mississippi Advisory Opinions July 03, 1986: 19860703 (July 03, 1986)

Advisory Opinion Text

Mr. Lawson McClellan

Chairman

Lee County Election Commission

Post Office Box 709

Tupelo, Mississippi 38801

Dear Mr. McClellan:

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

“I appreciate the reply from your office concerning removal of names from the voter registration list. However, I guess I did not make my request clear in regard to our problem. Our problem does not concern removal at our wishes, but rather at the wishes of our voter. We are having an increasing number of voters who are registered that wish their name removed from the registration books so that they will not be called for jury duty. (most are for religious reasons, although we have not asked for a reason). Therefore our question is when may we remove a name from these list at the person's request?”

Miss. Code Ann. §§ 23-5-79 through 23-5-82 prescribe the procedure and authority for election commissioners to remove names from the voter registration list. Similar authority is found in §§ 44-46 of Chapter 495 of the Mississippi Laws of 1986, Mississippi Election Code, which has an effective date of January 1, 1987, and which has not yet received approval under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Generally these statutes authorize the election commissioners to erase names of persons who are erroneously on the rolls or who have died, removed or become disqualified, or who have not voted in at least one election in four years beginning January 1, 1984. The names of all persons meeting these qualifications may be purged from the rolls in accordance with the statutory procedure and time.

We are unable to find any authority for the election commissioners to purge an otherwise qualified registered voter's name from the rolls at his request for the purpose of avoiding jury duty. However, you may wish to submit the question of a person's right to be removed from the voter registration list to a court of competent jurisdiction for determination in a declaratory judgment action.

Sincerely,

Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Attorney General.