Mississippi Advisory Opinions May 16, 1984: 19840516 (May 16, 1984)

Advisory Opinion Text

Honorable Wallace Gray, Jr.

Circuit Clerk

505 South Jefferson Street

Macon, Mississippi 39341

Re: Elections - Absentee Ballots

Dear Mr. Gray:

Attorney General Edwin Lloyd Pittman has received your letter of request and has assigned it to me for research and reply.

Your letter states:

“I would like a written opinion on applications for absentee ballots. Can the Circuit Clerk require an applicant to call or write and request an application for an absentee ballot? Can the Clerk require a family member or another person to sign an affidavit to the effect that someone has asked them to pick up the application for them?”

In response to your first question, this office has previously expressed the opinion that the Circuit Clerk acting as the County Registrar may exercise sound discretion in the furnishing of an application and that such application may be mailed to the absent elector or sent to him or her by any person duly authorized by the elector to obtain such application. Please see the enclosed copy of an opinion addressed to Honorable Joe Thomas Gay, dated December 28, 1981, and the attachments thereto.

In response to your second question, it is the opinion of this office that the Registrar may require a person to gives assurances that he has been duly authorized to obtain an application for an absentee ballot for an absent or disabled elector provided that in the exercise of sound discretion the Registrar determines that it is necessary to insure that only properly authorized persons receive said applications. However, in our opinion, the Registrar may not go so far as to require one to sign an affidavit to the effect that an absent or disabled elector has asked them to obtain the application.

For your further information, we are enclosing a copy of the Mississippi Supreme Court's decision in Riley v. Clayton , 441 So.2d 1322 (1983) in which the Court ruled that the use of the postal service to send absentee ballots to a voter is not essential to the legislative scheme under the statute governing how an absent or disabled elector may secure an absentee ballot and that the personal delivery of absentee ballots by the Registrar or his deputy is permissible. The Court also specifically ruled that absentee ballots voted in the presence of the Registrar or his deputy away from the Registrar's office may be personally returned to that office by the Registrar or deputy who acts as the attesting witness in lieu of mailing the voted ballot to said office.

Very truly yours,

Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Attorney General