Thursday, November 20, 2014, 11:32 am News Flash Archive

Starting Wednesday, November 19th, James Littleton, a candidate for circuit judge, began inspecting the ballot boxes of the November 4th race for District 4 Circuit Court Judge. That race pitted Littleton against Carol White-Richard and Takiyah Perkins.

Littleton appears to be focusing on the absentee ballots, which went overwhelmingly for Takiyah Perkins. Takiyah Perkins is the daughter of Greenwood attorney Willie Perkins, who is also a State Representative.

Although Carol White-Richard topped the poll district-wide, she and Perkins are headed for a run-off election next Tuesday, November 25th, since no one obtained a majority of the votes cast on November 4th. Littleton had landed in third place when the votes were counted.

The district covers parts of Washington, Sunflower, and Leflore Counties.

In Leflore County, Perkins received 49% of the vote, White-Richard received 24%, and Littleton received 27% of the vote.

However, the absentee balloting went heavily for Perkins in Leflore County. She received 75% of the absentee vote, with White-Richard receiving 12% and Littleton receiving 13%.

The full breakdown of the votes for Leflore County may be seen here:
Leflore County Votes Cast

Normally, election observers expect the absentee votes to break roughly the same percentage as the votes cast on the voting machine.

For example, in the Congressional race between Bennie Thompson, Troy Ray, and Shelley Shomemake, Thompson received 71% of the votes cast on the voting machines, and 75% of the absentee votes. Thus, the machine and absentee voting percentages tracked each other closely. The same was true in the Senate race between Cochran and Childers.

However, in the Perkins/White-Richard/Littleton race, Perkins received 3 out of every 4 absentee votes, while she received less than half of the votes cast on the voting machines. Perkins received 47% of the machine cast vote, but received 75% of the absentee votes cast.

Whenever the absentee voting percentages do not track the votes cast on voting machines, election investigators take a closer look at the absentee votes to discern whether there are wholesale irregularities or illegal patterns to be found in the absentee voting.

This was the basis for Preston Ratliff's successful election contest against Anjuan Brown in 2011. In that Democrat primary, Brown received 47% of the machine vote, but 81% of the absentee vote. Ratliff inspected the ballot boxes, and in court, Ratliff's attorney (who, ironically, was Willie Perkins) proved that Brown campaign workers had urged several dozen voters to lie about their qualification to cast absentee votes. Therefore, the court overturned the primary and ordered a new election.

Littleton's inspection continues this morning.

John Pittman Hey
The Taxpayers Channel

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