Incumbent Commissioner Albert Turner Jr. said Friday, Sept. 11, that he will run a write-in campaign for Perry County Commission District 1 rather than keep fighting over a Nov. 3 ballot that carries Donald J. Bennett Sr.’s name and not his, WAKA reported. By the next morning, absentee voting on that ballot had opened at the circuit clerk’s office.
“I’m not going to spend anymore time arguing about whether or not my name’s on the ballot or not, it doesn’t matter,” Turner told the station. “I know I’m the certified candidate, I know I’m the only one that can receive legal votes in this election.” He said the ballot had already been printed and that “we have to have at least one vote to make sure that we are the victor of the November general election.”
The sample ballot posted on the Alabama Secretary of State’s website, a file created Sept. 3, lists Donald Bennett as the Democrat for District 1 with a write-in line beneath the name. No Republican qualified for the seat. Probate Judge Carlton L. Hogue, who also chairs the Perry County Democratic Executive Committee, certified Bennett as the nominee, and his office prepares the ballot.
Circuit Clerk Mia Jacobs-Turner, the county’s absentee election manager, posted Saturday, Sept. 12, that absentee voting for the Nov. 3 election is open, in person or by mail, at the absentee office at 300 Washington Street in Marion. The Secretary of State’s administrative calendar set Sept. 9 as the last day for absentee ballots and supplies to reach the absentee election manager and Saturday, Sept. 19, as the last day to transmit ballots to military and overseas voters who requested them at least 45 days before the election.
The clerk’s post also said claims that her office was sending absentee ballots to voters outside their districts were “false and misleading,” and that the Board of Registrars, not the clerk, assigns each voter’s district. “Misinformation will not be silently allowed to be spread this election cycle,” the post said.
When the sample ballot first appeared, Turner told the Black Belt News Network he would pursue legal action to get his name in the Democratic slot, saying the certification Hogue turned in “did not have the correct signatures on it, nor did it follow the order of the Democratic Party.” No new filing had been made public as of Monday, Sept. 14. Turner’s suit against Hogue, filed Aug. 26 in Montgomery County Circuit Court, was dismissed Sept. 1.
The one case that remained after that dismissal appears to be over as well. Bennett said Saturday in a post on his Facebook page that “my motion to dismiss the related action as moot was granted,” a reference to the petition he filed July 8 in Montgomery County Circuit Court against the state party and Turner to stop the recount. Circuit Judge Greg Griffin had set a status review in that case for Sept. 10.
In the same post, which he headed “Response to Recent News Reporting,” Bennett said any state party action to substitute Turner’s name “never took effect” because it came after the statutory deadline for certifying ballot changes, “which is precisely why my name, not his, appears on the printed ballot.” He said the state party hearing that produced the Aug. 21 ruling was called with less than 48 hours’ notice, “well short of what the committee’s own bylaws require.” In a second post Sunday addressed to District 1 voters, he wrote that “this case has already been through the courts” and that party rules “cannot override” state election statutes.
Turner’s position, as he put it to WAKA, is that “the order that the Democratic Party issued is the order that has to be followed.” His campaign page said Friday that the dismissal of Bennett’s petition leaves the state party’s Aug. 21 order standing and that the party has been asked to hold a show-cause hearing on removing Hogue as county chairman. The state party has not publicly confirmed any such proceeding, and its website carried nothing on the Perry County matter as of Monday.
The dispute began with the May 19 Democratic primary. After provisional ballots were counted May 26, Bennett led Turner 398-397, and Hogue certified him June 1. The state party’s contest committee found Turner’s formal contest untimely but ordered a recount at his expense. The July 9 recount produced a 398-398 tie, which Hogue broke for Bennett as county chairman and reported to the state party as 399-398.
On Aug. 21 the contest committee voted 5-0 to count a disputed ballot for Turner, putting him ahead 399-398, and ordered Hogue to file an amended certification naming Turner by noon Aug. 24. Hogue did not, maintaining that the party’s power to change the nominee expired Aug. 5, 90 days before the general election. Turner sued him Aug. 26. Circuit Judge Monet Gaines dismissed the case Sept. 1, finding that Turner’s side could not say whom Hogue had certified and that the statutory certification deadline had passed the day the complaint was filed, the Times-Standard-Herald reported.
Unless a court orders a reprint, a write-in campaign is the only way Turner’s name could be counted in November. The general election is Nov. 3.
