Cain remains qualified for mayor

The Choctaw Plaindealer

Ackerman Mayor Dick Cain remains qualified to run for reelection for mayor after the Town of Ackerman's Election Commission issued their ruling.

A hearing was held, April 21, after Tim Rogers, Ackerman mayoral candidate, challenged Cain's qualifications for mayor.

During the hearing, Joe Griffin, hearing officer, said Rogers issued a petition questioning signatures on Cain's qualification petition for the general election.

The Ackerman election commission previously qualified the two-Cain and Rogers, as candidates for Mayor of Ackerman.

Rogers' attorneys hired a forensic specialist to analyze the signatures and that report was used in the hearing.

Paul Watkins, Jr. of Mayo Mallette, PLLC firm of Oxford, one of Rogers' two attorneys, explained the types of objections they have on many of the Cain's petition signatures.

"Challenge is to some signatures and if they qualify to valid signatures. The challenge is not personal to anyone," said Watkins.

He said their primary signature objection is that all petitions must be signed personally or it will not count as to Mississippi Code 1-3-75.

Mississippi Code 1-3-75 states, "Petitions must be signed personally by petitioners. All petitions presented to any governing body of the State of Mississippi, or any of its subdivisions, or municipalities thereof, must be signed personally by each petitioner; otherwise, said signature shall not be counted as a valid signature of such petition."

Watkins said their other objections are: do not know who signed, signed once, signature of people sign their own name and someone else's name and not signing true name.

He went through Cain's petition of signatures stating why they objected to that particular signature for a total of 28 challenges.

Watkins said Cain originally had 67 signatures; four were previously disqualified by the election commission then their 28 challenges left Cain with 35 signatures.

Law requires a candidate to have 50 qualified signatures to qualify as a candidate.

"If you look at our challenged signatures, not including ones who did not sign, we have 15 challenges and that is 28 signatures," said Watkins.

Thomas Jones, Cain's lawyer, said the election commission is the finder of fact. He said he could not question the forensic specialist because he was not present at the hearing.

"I want you to use your own judgment," said Jones to the election commission.

The hearing was then closed and the election commission left the room to deliberate. Six minutes later, they entered and Ann Hand, one of the three election commissioners, issued their decision.

"On April 2, we sat right here and questioned all the people in question to verify who signed. On April 3, we went through voter registration record," said Hand.

She went through the names in question and stated why or why not the signatures were counted as valid.

A few of the signatures were counted because one woman has a handicapped son and has legal permission to sign for him and another woman has power of attorney over her husband and can legally sign for him.

Overall, the election commission disqualified eight signatures leaving a total of 57 qualified signatures.

"We are total agreement that this meets statue and this makes his (Cain) petition verifiable and legal," said Hand.

Rogers' attorneys asked for the decision in writing and it was granted.