A June 2020 ruling on a petition filed contesting the City of Greenville’s Dec. 9, 2019, municipal elections in Wards 1 and 6 has been affirmed by the Mississippi Supreme Court.
“After taking into consideration all of the testimony, petitions, responses, and affidavits, the circuit court granted Brock’s and Wilson’s motions for summary judgment. We affirm,” Justice J. Ishee wrote.
Oliver Johnson, who lost to then Ward 1 incumbent Al Brock by nine votes, and Chauncy Wright, to then Ward 6 incumbent James Wilson by 88 votes, consolidated their petitions filed in Washington County Circuit, which claimed multiple voting irregularities.
Both parties conducted an examination of the ballot boxes on Dec. 17, 2019 according to court documents.
Johnson then filed his petition to contest the election in Ward 1 on Dec. 27, 2019 and Wright filed his election contest on Dec. 30, 2019.
Johnson said he wanted to ensure he had enough extenuating evidence to justify his contest and filing reasoning.
“When I went through it and saw that someone was allowed to vote on an electronic machine without an ID, which is against state law,” Johnson said he knew filing the petition would be necessary. “If you don’t have an ID, you’re supposed to do an affidavit ballot and if you’re caught voting without an ID, that violates election ethics code 97-13-19.”
Court documents state Johnson and Wright both “made similar claims of alleged voting irregularities, including but not being limited to, procedural violations of election officials of dealing with affidavit ballots, distance limitations, improper poll watcher actions.”
On Jan. 8, 2020, Johnson filed an amended petition.
Special Circuit Court Judge Jeff Weill was assigned by the Mississippi Supreme Court to hear the case and filed the initial scheduling order on Feb. 13, 2020.
Subsequent to the scheduling order, Brock and Wilson filed motions to dismiss as well as motions for summary judgment under Rules 12(b)(6) and 56 of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure.
On Feb. 13, 2020, the circuit court issued an order consolidating the cases.
After a May 2020 hearing at which the parties were allowed to offer testimony, the circuit court concluded that “Johnson and Wright had failed to provide proof to establish that any of the conduct complained of caused their election losses and that to conclude otherwise would be sheer speculation.”
Based on what Justice Ishee stated further, Johnson and Wright needed to exhibit sufficient evidence to establish the essential element of their election contest claim that the alleged voting improprieties that occurred during the election impacted the number of votes each of them received.
With that, the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Brock and Wilson was affirmed.
Johnson, who is a trustee for the Greenville Public School District, has put the matter behind him and being a successful trustee is at the forefront of his mind.
“As a constituent, I just wanted to ensure that all guidelines, policies and procedures were followed as it related to the election at that point and time,” he said. “Since then I’ve been appointed to the Greenville Public School Board of Trustees, so therefore my focus is on gaining valued trust in our community to make sure our school district is functioning properly as it relates to policy and procedure and moving our community and school district forward.”
