Four other candidates seek recount
Coahoma County Sheriff candidate Mario Magsby’s lawsuit in circuit court highlighted six written complaints about a wide range of issues from the Aug. 6 Democratic primary elections.
Magsby finished in second place with 2,128 votes (39.2 percent), while incumbent Sheriff Charles Jones secured 2,759 votes (50.8 percent). A candidate needs fifty percent plus one of the votes to secure the victory.
Magsby is asking for either a runoff between himself and Jones or a new election between him, Jones and third-place candidate Stacy Lester, who finished with 544 votes (10 percent).
Lester attempted to ask for the boxes to be canvassed, but submitted his letter to the Coahoma County Democratic committee too late.
Coahoma County Board of Supervisors District 3 candidate Travis Haggan has requested for the boxes to be canvassed. Haggan lost to incumbent Derrell Washington 682 (63.91 percent) to 375 (35.14 percent).
Shirley Fair, a candidate for District 5 of the Coahoma County Board of Supervisors, has asked for the boxes to be canvassed. She finished in third place as incumbent Will Young and challenger Roosevelt Lee had a runoff election Tuesday, Aug. 27.
Darron “Gucci” Griffin, a candidate for District 4 supervisor, asked for the boxes to be canvassed after falling to incumbent Johnny Newson.
Tax assessor/collector candidate Rotosca Harris has also asked for a recount of the votes in her letter after falling to Ann Williams.
Since there are no recounts in the state of Mississippi, she submitted another letter asking for the boxes to be canvassed, but it came in too late, which means Williams’ victory in the election still stands.
Since all candidates for the local offices in question ran as a Democrat, the winner of the primaries will be set to serve the next four years.
“It was a close election and I barely missed making the runoff,” said Magsby about his reason for filing a lawsuit. “Because there were so many problems with the election we thought the best thing to do was ask the court order a special runoff election, which is what typically happens when an election is this close and the will of the voters cannot be determined.”
Magsby’s lawsuit raises issues at the Lula, Lyon, Jonestown, Lee Drive in Clarksdale, Sasse Street Fire Station and National Guard Armory precincts. Concerns included malfunctioning voting machines, voters being allowed to cast their ballots before and after 7 p.m., conduct of poll managers, data cards being left in voting machines and candidates signs being too close to precincts.
“We had poll watchers assigned to various precincts, as allowed by law,” Magsby said. “Friends and supporters called us to report these problems. As a trained law enforcement officer I compiled witness statements and documentation. Pursuant to Law we recently inspected each of the ballot boxes and found numerous irregularities, mostly involving absentee ballots.”
Magsby also alleges Jones had one of his employees, deputy sheriff Tiffany Liddell, transport voters to the Coahoma County Expo Center.
Jones said all of the issues were with machines and nothing he or anyone on his campaign team did improperly.
“I don’t work on machines,” Jones said. “I don’t have anything to do with setting up machine. I don’t have anything to do with machines malfunctioning. Some of those complaints, some of that is hearsay. I don’t get caught up in hearsay. Anybody who runs for office can contest an election.
“I’m not a technician. I don’t work on machines. Of course, it would have affected me also.”
Jones said there were issues with machines throughout Mississippi.
Lester claimed there was “improper conduct” by poll workers, including some who solicited votes for other candidates. He said he learned some of the information from poll workers and also witnessed things himself.
“Me, personally, I feel it should be a whole other election because there’s proof that the machines were malfunctioning throughout the state,” Lester said.
Lester said within the first 15 minutes of the polls being open, a voter complained he or she tried to vote for him, but it went to another candidate. After 5 p.m. on the same day, Lester also said he knew of four candidates who tried to vote for him, but only one was able to. He added the four voters also told him “the machines have been having problems all day.”
The city of Clarksdale bond election to deal with flooding issues was on Aug. 6 forcing citizens to vote at two places on the same day.
“Having the city bond issue on the same day as election day, that was unfair to all of the candidates in the city because it was forcing people to go to multiple polls,” Lester said.
Lester said, regardless of the results, he would have felt the same way about having a new election. “Even if I won, I would have wanted it to be fair and, if I lose, I want it to be fair because I made my complaint before the poll closing and anybody knew any numbers,” Lester said. “I knew the election wasn’t fair due to all of the complaints we had during this election.”
Attorney Ellis Turnage from Cleveland will be answering the complaint for the Coahoma County Democratic Executive Committee.
“A lawsuit’s a lawsuit,” said Coahoma County Democratic Executive Committee chair Ray Sykes. “There are a lot of things that I agree or disagree with. Not to speak much of the lawsuit, but there are a lot of things I agree and disagree with. One thing that you want to remember is it’s just the process. My interest is that anybody who runs as a Democrat, my job is to protect.”
Magsby’s lawsuit was officially against Jones, Lester and the Coahoma County Democratic Executive Committee. It was not, however, against the Coahoma County Election Commission, which former Sheriff Andrew Thompson is the chair of.
Masgby worked under Thompson at the Sheriff’s office.
Jones said he believed the election commission was not on the lawsuit because Thompson is a member.
Magsby said Thompson never told him he was supporting him during the election and the Jones started the false rumor.
“I didn’t campaign for anybody,” Thompson said. “I know my responsibility on the election commission. I can’t campaign and support anybody. The only way I can support anybody is to vote for them.”
Alma Brown, JoAnn Gates, Roosevelt Noah and Virginia Burchfield are the other members of the election commission.
Magsby’s attorney, Samuel Begley out of Jackson, cited Encyclopedia MS Law § 29A:50 (2d ed.) as the reason the election commission was not named in the lawsuit.
“The Democratic primary is conducted by the county party executive committee,” Begley said. “The County election commission is responsible for the general election and, moreover, under the election contest statute, the five members of the election commission, set as part of tribunal along with the special judge.”
When Jones ran for Sheriff in 2007, he originally lost to Thompson, who was the incumbent at the time. Jones filed a lawsuit, a new election was held and he took office in 2009.
Jones said machines malfunction throughout the state regularly, but the issues were very different in 2007. He said individuals voted on absentee ballots for other people in 2007. Some of the people they voted for were dead.
“Somebody was given a stack of absentee ballots, told to fill them out and turn them back in,” Jones said. “That’s how my election got overturned because they had illegal votes and illegal ballots.”
After the absentee ballots were passed around, Jones said voters were specifically told to vote for other people.
“That’s totally different,” Jones said. “The stuff they’re talking about happens in every election in the nation. My election got overturned because illegal votes were counted. The only way to turn over election is illegal votes.”
Thompson said he did not have anything to do with the absentee voter issues in 2007.
“The absentee voters voted on their own,” he said. “I didn’t solicit absentee votes.”
Thompson said those who cast their ballots absentee could have voted for anyone.
Jones said, in the 2019 election, Magsby was running a campaign on revenge and lies. He mentioned an event with candidates at Clarksdale High School where he claimed Magsby said he stopped working at the Sheriff’s office three years ago when it had really been 11 months.
“I have a job. I have work to do,” Jones said. “I don’t have time to go back and forth with the nonsense Magsby is doing.
“I’m not surprised that he’s not being truthful. I’m really not surprised anymore about what Magsby says or does and what extremes he goes to, to be sheriff.”
Magsby said Jones misinterpreted his comments.
“What I said is in the last three years is I have seen a decline in the Coahoma County Sheriff’s Office,” Magsby said.
Jones said his main focus is on his job as Sheriff the next four years, noting a new jail on Highway 49 is expected to be completed in the next month and a half.
“The citizens have spoken in Coahoma County who they want their sheriff to be,” Jones said. “I am focused on getting some major in things done in Coahoma County in these next four years.”
Jones talked about building bridges in the community going forward.
“We’ve seen such a divide in the Coahoma County community in the last couple of years,” he said. “My focus is finding a way to bring this community together, to unite this community.
“You can see the divide in the community. I want to be part of the solution, not the problem.
“It’s time for Magsby to move on with his life.”
Magsby and Lester still plan to stay involved and let the community know their interest in becoming Sheriff.
“We hope to have a swift decision from the court. In the meantime, I will continue to participate in local activities,” Magsby said.
Lester said he would still be active in doing good deeds and being involved with churches.
“I’m still at the Clarksdale Police Department working,” he said. “I’m a corporal patrol. I’m going to continue to fight making Clarksdale as safe as possible for the citizens.”
District 3 Supervisor race
One of Haggan’s biggest concerns was voter confusion.
“It was a lot of confusion,” he said. “My poll watcher said a lot of things were going on in Jonestown itself. I don’t think people over the polls know what’s at stake when they are at the polls.
“My poll watcher actually stated she didn’t think a lot of people didn’t show their ID. She can’t prove that, but that’s a state law.”
Haggan said the crews work the same polls every election. He claimed they do not switch polling places because of a traveling fee. He said “the entire process pretty much” has serious issues.
“Overall, as a whole, I think the whole thing needs an overhaul,” Haggan said.
“I’ve been staying in Jonestown for 40 years and everybody that worked the polls knows who I am and even I had to show my ID,” said Washington in response. “I’m almost questioning does he have a legitimate complaint or is it just another case of monkey see, monkey do, follow the leader.
“Does the system need an overhaul? Maybe, but do I think this system cost him the election? No. I think he didn’t get out. He didn’t work. We had three political forums and he didn’t try to sell himself to the people to gain the support of District 3. Sometimes when we pass blame, we have to point the finger at ourselves. Did he do everything he could have done to win the election? As District 3 supervisor, I think my first term, I did an excellent job for my district.”
Washington said he worked hard to win a second term.
“My reelection, it wasn’t a fluke,” he said. “It wasn’t a flaw. It was the hard work I put into my election and my hard work as a supervisor, period.”
Moving forward
Sykes said there are 15 active members of the Coahoma County Democratic Executive Committee. Three of them – Newson, Griffin and Dear-Moton – were not part of the process during the election.
“As a courtesy call, I’m going to respond to everybody’s request of some things that they say that happened or any complaint,” Sykes said. “It was customary complaints. It’s nothing that doesn’t happen every election in somebody’s county.
“Most of the things we see are repetitive things.”
The boxes have been canvassed and Sykes will announce the Coahoma County Democratic Party’s next step in the process by the end of the week.
Going forward, Sykes hopes voters have fewer issues.
“I would love to see if there was any kind of way to clean up and get a new type of machine,” he said.
“Going back to a paper ballot would give a sense of us being able to have accountability. When the machine doesn’t work, we fix the count with our hand. When we disagree, we have a second way of verifying it with a hand count.”
