Two candidates now claim the Democratic nomination for Perry County Commission District 1, and the officials who could settle it have taken opposing positions.
On Friday the Alabama Democratic Party’s contest committee voted 5-0 that a disputed ballot from the May 19 primary should count for incumbent Commissioner Albert Turner Jr., putting him ahead of Marion businessman Donald J. Bennett Sr. 399-398, and ordered the chairman of the Perry County Democratic Executive Committee to file an amended certification naming Turner by noon Monday.
That chairman is Probate Judge Carlton L. Hogue, who certified Bennett in June and again after a July recount, and who maintains the state party’s power to change the result expired Aug. 5. The deadline passed with no amended certification. By Monday evening Turner’s supporters were posting that the state party had set Hogue’s action aside and recognizes Turner as the nominee; the party had not said so publicly as of Tuesday.
Whoever is right takes the seat. No Republican qualified, so the Democratic nominee is unopposed Nov. 3. The ballot is prepared by the probate judge’s office, and absentee ballots for military and overseas voters must be ready by Sept. 19. The Secretary of State’s office will not referee: asked Tuesday which name it recognizes, Elections Director Jeff Elrod replied that the office does not certify county commission candidates; probate judges do. No court has ruled on any part of the dispute.
Friday’s hearing at party headquarters in Montgomery was held before a five-member committee. Turner was the only candidate present, WAKA reported, and his attorney, Fred Bell of Montgomery, argued from a copy of the ballot: the oval beside Bennett’s name filled in, then scratched out, with “error” written beside it and Turner’s oval marked. Bell said the voter had corrected a mistake. The committee agreed. Hogue had disallowed that ballot during the July 9 recount, along with one cast by a District 2 voter who was handed a District 1 ballot. The committee also voted, 3-0 with two abstaining, to return the $8,500 Turner had posted as security for the recount.
Bennett did not attend. The party’s notice, an undated letter emailed at 4:59 p.m. Wednesday, announced “election contest hearings” Friday at 10 a.m. and said Chairman Bobby Singleton and committee members would conduct them. Bennett objected that evening to less than two days’ notice and said his attorney would handle it; a request to postpone was denied 3-2. Party bylaws call for five days’ notice of committee meetings “to the extent reasonably practicable.”
The committee’s other decision Friday, decertifying the Democratic nominee for Wilcox County Commission District 3, was ruled invalid hours later for improper notice to all parties and reset for Monday, WSFA reported. No similar action was announced in the Perry County case.
The dispute turns on which statute governs. Turner’s formal contest was filed May 29, three days after results were declared; state law allows 24 hours. In a June 25 decision, the contest committee agreed the contest was untimely and affirmed the county committee’s denial on every ground but one, whether the ballots cast had been miscounted, and on that question it reserved ruling.
It held that Turner’s separate recount request, delivered to Hogue May 26, was timely, and ordered a recount at Turner’s expense. It said that if, and only if, the recount produced a tie or a Turner lead, it would hear further argument on whether Turner still had an avenue to contest, and it authorized the county committee to certify Bennett in the meantime.
The recount produced a 398-398 tie after Hogue set aside the two ballots; 35 ballots were briefly unaccounted for before being located. Hogue broke the tie for Bennett under the statute providing that a tie in a county-office primary is decided by the county committee chairman, reported the result as 399-398 and hand-delivered it to party headquarters July 14.
Bennett’s supporters point to the statute requiring a county-office primary contest to be finally decided no later than 90 days before the general election, Aug. 5 this year, with failure treated as a dismissal or a judgment against the contestant. The state committee had from July 14 to Aug. 5 to act, they argue, and did not.
They also cite the recount statute, which makes the county executive committee the canvassing authority in a party primary and says a recount that changes the result is grounds for a contest, not for a state ruling on a single ballot.
Turner’s supporters answer that the contest was denied and the recount was the proceeding that survived, so the 90-day clock never ran on it; that the June 25 order reserved exactly this step; that the statutes make the state committee the court of final appeal in party contests and vest it with a county committee’s powers when the county refuses to carry out its order; and that the party’s bylaws let the state committee set aside a county committee’s action on its own motion.
The bylaws also say state statutes control if the two conflict, and they allow either party to appeal a contest subcommittee’s decision to the full state committee within 10 days, a window that closes Aug. 31.
The party’s noon Monday deadline was the Secretary of State’s last day for a party to amend its certifications of county candidates with the probate judge; later amendments are accepted but cannot force a reprint.
The only case in court is Bennett’s petition, filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court July 8 to stop the recount. Circuit Judge Greg Griffin took no action on the emergency motion in an Aug. 7 order and set a status review for Sept. 10. Turner had not been served as of the last docket entry.
On his weekly WJUS program Sunday, Turner said the election was not over, urged straight-ticket Democratic voting and said he would ask the state party to remove Hogue and Shepherd from the county committee for disloyalty. He told WSFA after the hearing, “I just needed one today, and that’s what I got.”
Bennett, who has not addressed the order publicly, posted Monday that elections “are not about winners and losers, they are about who is chosen to serve.”
