Karl Banks may have started a fight over his loss in court but David Bishop didn't mind hitting him back today as he filed a response in Madison County Circuit Court today. You know the story. Madison County District 4 Supervisor and 32-year incumbent Karl Banks lost by two votes to challenger David Bishop. Banks filed a lawsuit in court that seeks to restore several absentee and affidavit ballots to the election results that oddly enough would make him the winner.
Most of the response goes back and forth over denying Banks the votes he seeks to add to the final tally while seeking to disqualify thirteen Banks votes and add one Bishop vote that were disqualified. However, Bishop charges ballot tampering on page 21:
However, on Tuesday, November 10, 2015, Petitioner/Cross-Respondent Banks, and others affiliated with the Banks campaign orchestrated with two poll managers and District 4 Commissioner Azzie L. Jackson Adams to go to the Courthouse and attempt to alter and/or tamper with certain affidavit ballot envelopes, thereby attempting to alter the outcome of the election. When a quorum of the Election Commission arrived at the Courthouse, three Commissioners, led by Commissioner Adams, in fact were granted access to the balloting materials, and Commissioner Adams actually accessed affidavit ballots. On information and belief, one of the poll managers told another election official that she had been called to come to the Courthouse and sign ballots. This attempt to tamper with and alter ballot envelopes is clearly illegal under Mississippi law.Bishop also claims the ballot boxes were left unsealed as well:
35. The Election Commission at no time “re-stuffed” any affidavit ballots into opened envelopes. On information and belief, the opened affidavit ballots were placed and sealed in the same strong box as other paper ballots—in plain view of the public—on Thursday afternoon, November 5, 2015, in advance of the official canvas of the Madison County election returns.
36. Yet, when Bishop and Banks conducted their respective ballot examinations the week of November 16, 2015, as provided by Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-911, both parties discovered that opened affidavit ballots envelopes contained purported paper ballots.
37. Tampering, or attempting to tamper, with balloting materials is unlawful, and also impugns the integrity of the balloting materials. Because of the absence of a seal log, and because purported ballots of some kind appear to have been “stuffed” into opened affidavit ballot envelopes by someone other than the Election Commission, and in light of the incident orchestrated by Petitioner and others on November 10, 2015, there is a fundamental question surrounding the integrity of the “re-stuffed” ballots. Strict proof that the purported ballots are authentic and unaltered is therefore required before any such ballots are accessed, re-counted, or otherwise offered in this action in an effort to set aside the certification of Bishop as the candidate receiving the greatest number of legal votes cast in the November 3, 2015 General Election for Madison County Supervisor, District 4.
Once the Election Commission had finished its unofficial hand count of the Supervisor District 4 ballots, it canvased the election returns for the rest of Madison County on Friday, November 6, 2015.The case has been assigned to Special Circuit Judge Henry Lackey.
31. While the ballots and envelopes were sealed in separate strong boxes by the Election Commission, no seal log was maintained, contrary to Mississippi law, such that there is no way to determine whether the seals affixed to the ballot boxes have remained inviolate. There is no way to tell if anyone broke seals, and then replaced new seals on the ballot boxes.
Earlier post with copy of Banks petition.
10 comments:
What a crook. Glad his 32 year streak ended
There it is -- Election Fraud, Illegal activity and tampering!
Finally, posted in fact and names of those illegal voters too! Sorry but that is funny!
Glad to see this response by Mr Bishop and Legal team.
Its on now.................
I was there 32 years ago when the Feds gerrymandered District 4 to be a black majority district. The long time incumbent, "Preacher" Crawford, was a local farmer who was very honest and did a great job. After the gerrymandering, Karl Banks ran against Preacher. Preacher won by a few votes initially, but after the absentee and affidavit votes were counted Banks was ahead by 5 or 10 votes. This was long before we had Voter ID and the Dems are very skilled in getting votes from dead people and nursing home residents. After the race, Preacher asked for a recount but the black majority on the Election Commission refused to allow a recount - even though it was very close. Nothing has changed since then. A Dem on the Election Commission is there only to try to steal the election by any means necessary, legal or not.
Banks was a fast learner but he didn't perfect his stealing machine until he went to grad school taught by Tim Johnson and Rudy Warnock. He and Distict 5 supe, Paul Griffin, were always able to find one (or more) whore from the Republicans (yes Howland, I am talking about you) to go in with them to control the county and the county treasury.
Once Bishop, Sheila Jones, and Trey Baxter go in we taxpayers will FINALLY have our county back after 32 freakin' years.
I hope Judge Lackey is paying attention to all the crooked BS going on and finish throwing Banks and the rest of the trash out.
Several things are worrisome:
"On information and belief...."
"There is no proof that the ballots were not altered...."
I can't see either swaying da jurdge.
...so the court should rule like the NFL replay crew, incontrovertible evidence to overturn the commission certification
Just elections done the Ms. way. All of them are crooked. If they were not crooked they would not even be on the ballot.
Anyone tampering with a ballot or encouraging someone else to tamper with a ballot should be prosecuted and sentenced to jail time.
Sad that someone that served 32 years cannot move on and let someone else have a turn. It demonstrates how power corrupts.
@10:20pm - They may have gerrymandered Banks district 32 years ago but they did it again before Tim Johnson stepped back. Banks district whitened up a good bit and he stood a real chance of losing. So they, The Supes, redrew the lines again, blackcening Banks and Griffins districts up and intentionally keeping Redd's house or subdivision keeping him out. He was running for Johnsons seat. I don't remember Mr. Redd's given name. All legal mind you and approved by the courts. These type shenanigans will continue to happen.
@9:44am - Like I said in my post above: Tim "Elvis" Johnson could teach a Master's level course in corruption. He screwed the Hell out of the taxpayers with his huge "bait and switch" tax increase, his Warnock engineered multimillion dollar Reunion I-55 bridge boondoggle, his gerrymandering the district lines to keep Banks in power, etc., etc, When it was obvious that he could no longer get re-elected, he stepped down and the other Supes appointed him to a cushy guvmint job where he could hibernate and draw a check.
Most Madison county voters were not aware of the crap going on in Madison County as the Clarion Ledger doesn't report any bad news on Democrats and the TV news is just garbage about car wrecks, murder, and other info-tainment. Only the Madison County Journal cares about exposing the incompetence and corruption that has been the hallmark of Madison County politics.
Other posts above were of the opinion that all politics is corrupt, etc., etc. I have to disagree. We do have people, like myself, who finally got so sick of being ripped off that we are determined to change things. Trey, Sheila, and David Bishop will clean house and run the county in a business like fashion. If it isn't a good deal for the taxpayers, it will not get passed.
Also, you can count on having two less Democrat trolls on the election commission after the election in December 2016. Good honest people who have had enough are going to run against them. Corrupt politicians flourish when the voters are too apathetic to get involved and too cheap to help fund the election campaign of honest candidates. Crooks can always find ready donors.
The reason Tim is good at corruption is he has O morals and not that he is smart. Dumb as dirt but does not know right from wrong. Finally Madison county will be able to really move ahead.
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