Names removed from the municipal complex petition drive are on display in the city clerk’s office at City Hall. This action came about after Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting.
Alderman at Large Vic Zitta made a motion for the list of names removed from the petition to be displayed on the counter in the office after presenting several names from the petition drive that he thinks were wrongfully removed.
Since the board already voted to accept bonds at the previous meeting, Ward 6 Alderman Roy A. Perkins seconded the motion under the premise that the names would be on display, but would have no bearing on the name removal verification, he said.
There was a unanimous vote to pass this motion, and the names were posted the next morning in the city clerk’s office. However, this information has been available for months, Mayor Mack Rutledge said.
“There’s been more than one copy in my office since September,” Rutledge said.
Zitta’s presentation included names from petitions to have a citywide vote to decide whether or not to accept government bonds to build a municipal justice complex on the Miss. Highway 25 Bypass. His process of verifying names on the petition was independent of the city’s own process.
Zitta said his independent verification yielded several mistakes made in the city’s verification process. Zitta only researched 121 names, and there were 570 names removed from the petition, he said.
A committee removed some names because they were not registered to vote or did not register by the deadline. Some names were removed by a counter petition that was released. The petition fell short of the required amount by fewer than 70 names.
Zitta said he believes the amount of legitimate names that were thrown out mistakenly can be increased from the original 21 found by the city committee.
“We think we can get this to at least 200 names,” he said.
Zitta called Carolyn Adams-Price up before the board. Her name had been thrown out because it was found to be illegitimate; the committee claimed the name was not registered as a voter, but Price is a registered voter, Zitta said.
Price signed her name Carolyn Adams, which caused the board to mistake her name for one that was not registered, Zitta said. He then asked Price to identify her name on the petition. Next, Zitta asked her about the name on a spreadsheet on the overhead.
“That’s not my print,” Price said, referring to a name typed incorrectly into the spreadsheet as not registered to vote.
“I’ve been [a registered voter] for 15 years,” Price said.
Of the 121 names Zitta examined, he found several names he believes the verification committee missed, he said.
“You will come up with a total of 12 names I feel should’ve not been disenfranchised,” Zitta said.