Jackson Jambalaya

All Madison County Circuit judges recused themselves from the case.  It was assigned to Special Guest Star Judge Jeff Weill. Judge Weill heard it all in a trial lasting several days.    

Judge Weill said it was clear "not one voter was denied the right to vote or was disenfranchised in any way." Circuit Judge Dewey Arthur denied a similar petition several weeks earlier. Judge Arthur held it was too late to enter the addresses in SEMS since that petition was filed the day before the election. However, the learned jurist ordered the city of Canton to provide affidavit ballots to any residents of the disputed areas who showed up to vote. Earlier post.

The Court held Ms. Walker provided little, if any evidence to support her claims:

The Petitioner failed to prove the number of voters in the annexed area 15 whose status was not updated in SEMS and argues without basis - only speculation - that virtually all were not included on the poll books. That is not the case. The circuit clerk stated she and the current Canton city clerk had for more than a year, through a slow and frustrating process, added many,many of the annexed voters to SEMS and they were included in the poll books. No witness came forward to say otherwise. Thus, the argument that a vast number of annexed voters were excluded from the poll books, creating was a massive departure from accepted voting practices was not proven.

As for the 11 technical violations, most of which are either minor, such as failing to clean old voting paperwork accumulated in previous elections, or misfiling lists and spoiled ballot envelopes, both the city and circuit clerks testified those instances are common in virtually every election. This was confirmed by the Election Commissioners. The somewhat more serious allegations of affidavit ballots, absentee ballots, and official vote totals not being stored in secure boxes is considerably mitigated by testimony from the city clerk that all of the election paperwork is stored in a vault to which only she has a key. Further, the Petitioner confirms that no fraud or intentionality is alleged. It certainly wasn't proven.

It is telling that the Petitioner found zero instances of illegal ballots and made no such challenges which is the common claim in most election cases. The absence of those claims is, in my opinion, relevant proof the election was run properly.

 

Judge Weill also held the claim the poll books all of the voters in the disputed areas were not updated in SEMS was simply not true:

Petitioner admitted, though having been aware of her claims for months, that she and her attorneys were not able to find one person in the annexed area who was either unaware of the election or was denied the right to vote in it....

18. Ms. Anita Wray, the Circuit Clerk, produced documents subpoenaed by the Petitioner which showed that City Clerk Chuconna Anderson and City Attorney Kimberly Banks had been working with her office for at least one year to provide information so that her office could upload additional streets in the newly annexed areas into SEMS in order to update voters in the annexed areas, change their status to reflect them as municipal voters, and that she had done so many times in the year prior to the election. She noted that after making those status changes in SEMS, her office had mailed out new voter registration cards reflecting that status change to the newly annexed voters. She also testified that adding information into SEMS is a continuous and ongomg process.

Ms. Walker was apparently unable to provide any information about the allegedly affected voters:

19. The Petitioner did not offer any evidence of the number of units in the Trails of Madison apartments that were occupied on April 22, 2025, how many registered voters lived there or even the number of registered voters in the entire annexed areas. All such information offered at the hearing was based largely on speculation.

Since the petitioner failed to meet her burden of proving her case, Judge Weill denied the petition.