The substance of Johnny Moore’s challenge of last year’s Starkville mayoral runoff election began to take shape on Monday as the trial began in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court.

Moore, who lost to current Mayor Lynn Spruill by six votes in a May Democratic party primary runoff, is arguing there were several irregularities with the election — particularly that several affidavit and absentee ballots that were not counted should have been.

During Monday’s court proceedings, Columbus attorney William Starks, who is representing Moore, argued there were discrepancies in the tally sheets for several wards and the number of ballots marked for Spruill or Moore in the ballot boxes.

Much of Monday’s afternoon proceedings focused on testimony from Jim McKell, who serves on the Municipal Election Commission.

Throughout the afternoon, Starks questioned McKell on seven ballots — six affidavits and one absentee — that Moore contends should have been counted. The ballots were excluded for a number of reasons, including some where the voter was marked as having an inactive voter status, and others where the current address of the voter was not clear at the time of the election.

For one ballot, cast by James Clinton Schilling, McKell said he wasn’t sure of the proper address on the form and tried to contact Schilling, who never contacted him back. On another ballot, cast by David Moore — who testified earlier in the day to living within the city limits — McKell said the Statewide Election Management System (SEMS) commissioners rely on to verify addresses and other voter information showed him as not living in the city.

Though Starks came armed with information pulled from SEMS this year, McKell pointed out information recently pulled from SEMS may not accurately reflect what information commissioners had to work with when reviewing ballots during the primary.

“On each of these, there’s the possibility that what SEMS showed on that day and what we have now is not the same,” McKell said. “It may have been updated.”

During cross examination by attorney Jim Mozingo, who is representing Spruill, McKell also pointed out that some instances weren’t as clear-cut as they initially appeared. For example, it was hard to tell, in the case of an affidavit ballot cast by Jennifer Grant Watts, whether she was most recently registered to vote in Starkville or Vicksburg for the election, and he said commissioners had insufficient information to approve the ballot when reviewing affidavits.

Earlier in the day, Starks questioned Carla Jones, a Ward 1 poll manager who worked the runoff election. Starks questioned the count on a tally sheet, which showed 204 votes for Spruill, and said that there appeared to have been a three marked out and replaced with a four on the final count.

He further argued that there were only 203 ballots for Spruill in the box.

Starks presented one ballot that marked for neither Moore nor Spruill and had, as Jones described it, a sad face drawn on it. He questioned if the ballot, which was apparently included in an accepted ballots envelope, should have been accepted.

“There’s no name for neither one of them,” Jones said. “So we cannot give that vote to either one of them.”

Starks requested to have Jones recount the ballots in the Ward 1 box.

Lydia Quarles, one of the attorneys representing Spruill, fiercely objected to the request.

“A general recount is not accepted in Mississippi law,” Quarles said. “It’s just not a remedy that we have.”

Former First District Circuit Judge Barry Ford, who is presiding over the election challenge, denied Stark’s request, and said the court will not “get into” recounting ballots.

Moore’s election challenge will continue today.

Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.

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