Jackson City Council is waiting 14 more days before setting a new Ward 3 election.
A jury last week overturned the Feb. 28 runoff in which LaRita Cooper-Stokes defeated Joyce Jackson. The judge then ordered the council to set a new election date within 30 days of Tuesday’s meeting.
City attorney Pieter Teeuwissen told the council Tuesday to wait, as there is typically a 10-day stay after civil judgments. He advised the council to set an election date at its June 26 meeting. That would likely push the election to late July.
John Reeves, Jackson’s attorney, said the rule cited doesn’t apply to elections, and the election date should be set by July 12. “The city council is following its attorney’s advice, and I certainly understand that, but the court order says what it says.”
Eventually, though, he said, “this will all work out and the people will have their say in a free and fair election.”
Jackson will again face Cooper-Stokes to fill the seat Cooper-Stokes’ husband, Kenneth Stokes, vacated to join the Hinds County Board of Supervisors.
Reeves has asked county, state and federal officials to police the new election. He sent letters Monday to Hinds County Sheriff Tyrone Lewis, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann and Christian Herren, director of the voting rights division at the U.S. Department of Justice, asking them to help enforce voting laws during the election.
He hopes deputies from the Sheriff’s Department will provide security at the precincts, as he believes Jackson Police Department officers are not neutral.
Their duties “would include keeping campaigners outside of 150 feet of the polling place, not allowing voters to yell and scream at voters at the polling place, not allowing campaigners to rush the cars of voters and encamp their cars as they try to get out,” he said. “To enforce law and order.”
From the state and federal officials, he’s asked for poll watchers.
Pam Weaver, director of communication for the secretary of state, said her office would fulfill Reeves’ request. “We routinely send observers to areas in which a request is made,” she said.
Representatives from the Sheriff’s Department and DOJ were either not available or did not yet have a response.
Jackson alleged the February election was corrupt, with poll workers allowing campaigning within 150 feet of and inside the polling place, illegally assisting voters and displaying racial discrimination.
Reeves would not predict a possible outcome of the upcoming election. “The race is between Mrs. Cooper-Stokes and Miss Jackson,” he said. “The people will vote for whomever they wish.”
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