Meridian City Hall

After a lengthy discussion Tuesday to determine who will oversee the May 2 Meridian municipal election, Meridian’s City Council tabled an agreement that authorized Election Systems & Software to oversee the election on behalf of the city for $50,927.

Meridian Mayor Percy Bland lobbied for ESS to handle the election rather than the election to fall under the auspices of the Lauderdale County Election Commission, which has handled numerous other municipal elections.

During Tuesday’s discussion, a letter sent to council members by the Lauderdale County Election Commission revealed the commission rescinded its offer by a 3-2 vote to assist the city with the election. The snafu seemed to be over cost comparisons.

The letter read: 

“At last Tuesday’s City’s work session, Lauderdale County Election Commission Chairman Jeff Tate was requested by the City Council to present a cost comparison for Lauderdale County managing the city election cycle to that of ESS’s cost,” the letter “At last Tuesday’s City’s work session, Lauderdale County Election Commission Chairman Jeff Tate was requested by the City Council to present a cost comparison for Lauderdale County managing the city election cycle to that of ESS’s cost.” 

“Lauderdale County’s cost is $20,927 less while providing more than double the services. City Council President Kim Houston asked for a bottom line cost for this election cycle,” the letter continued. “Mr. Tate requested more information from the city in order to determine that cost. Council President Houston instructed Mr. Whitaker to get with Mr. Tate with details of how many ballots and poll workers the city would request to determine the cost before the next regular meeting. As of now, there has been no contact.

“After much slander, misinformation, accusations and attempts to discredit the Lauderdale County Election Commission by city officials, a meeting was called and a 3-2 decision by the commission was made to rescind any offer to assist with this city election cycle, the letter concluded and was signed by Lauderdale County Election commission.

“This is not a cost issue. Both elections will cost us $125,000-$150,000, so there is no difference in price,” Ward 5 Councilman Randy Hammon said after the meeting. “Trying to train everybody with new machines and training new poll workers doesn’t make sense. We haven’t been given any reason for why we need to change.”

Ward 2 Councilman Dustin Markham said Lauderdale County has the experience to conduct the election.

“The consensus of the City Council is the Lauderdale County election Commission has the experience and has conducted 22 of the last 23 elections in Lauderdale County,” Markham said. “They have competence and handled the Presidential elections in November. The reason they said they would not do the election was over how they’ve been treated by the administration. It’s not about costs, but it’s about do we want to employ experience and we want to employ Lauderdale County.”

Houston said she was disappointed there was no meeting of the minds.

“I’m disappointed that nobody wanted to discuss it. Hopefully moving forward we can get all the questions answered and decide who is going to run our election as we are running out of time.”

Bland said he thought ESS is more than capable of handling the job.

“At this point, ESS has run municipal elections. Our Chief Financial Officer and clerks are trained and certified. We have five five city election commissioners so the city can its own election as it did in August,” Bland said, referring to the Food and Beverage Tax Referendum that went to support the Mississippi Arts & Entertainment Experience. We’re confident we can have a smooth race. Change is hard.”

Bland said Lauderdale County Election Commission’s decision to rescind its offer makes the city’s choice clear.

“If that is their decision, we should move forward,” Bland said. “We have enough capacity to handle this race with our financial department, ESS and our election commissioners. If the money is the same, why do we have five election commissioners if we’re not going to work an election?”