Elections board to challenge 2 more sheriff candidates

Sheriff John Darr may be the last candidate standing after the Muscogee County elections board meets Monday to challenge the qualifications of his remaining two challengers.

Having disqualified Democrats Pam Brown and Robert Keith Smith on March 30, the board now will review qualifying paperwork submitted by the remaining Democrat, Donna Tompkins, and Republican Mark LaJoye. Darr plans to run as an independent.

The five-member board met Thursday to consider a challenge to Tompkins’ qualifications from Brown’s attorney, J. Mark Shelnutt, who maintains Tompkins too late filed an affidavit swearing she met the standards to seek the office.

The law says the affidavit must be filed at the time the candidate qualifies, Shelnutt said. Tompkins qualified with the Democratic Party on March 7. Her affidavit was filed with the county elections office on March 15.

Tompkins said the affidavit was missing from the packet of documents the Democratic Party gave her the day she paid her qualifying fee, and she did not realize that until election workers called to tell her it wasn’t on file.

During its meeting Thursday, the board decided Shelnutt’s April 25 challenge was filed too late, as the deadline for such complaints was two weeks after qualifying ended at noon March 11.

But the board voted to investigate the matter on its own, and set a meeting for 1 p.m. Monday in the Columbus Council chamber on the second floor of the City Services Center at 3111 Citizens Way, off Macon Road by the public library.

After re-examining the law’s requirements and the documents candidates filed, the board decided also to challenge LaJoye’s qualifications, as election workers said the Republican has failed to file a “certified” copy of his birth certificate by the third business day after qualifying ended, which was March 16.

The board earlier disqualified Brown and Smith for missing that same deadline to submit their fingerprints for a criminal background check.

LaJoye argued Thursday that he had brought his birth certificate to the elections office on March 10, and had a worker there notarize it and keep a copy.

But elections director Nancy Boren said notarizing a document does not certify it. The birth certificate must be certified by the agency issuing it, to establish its authenticity, she said.

LaJoye, who twice has run for sheriff before, was incredulous. “All this stuff that’s going on right now is ridiculous,” he said after the board meeting.

If the board disqualifies Tompkins and LaJoye, Darr would face opposition only if challengers mounted independent or write-in campaigns. Though the disqualified candidates’ names still would be on the ballot, which already has been printed, their votes would not be counted, and notices posted at voting precincts and enclosed in absentee mail-in ballots would tell voters those candidates were disqualified.

As the board meets Monday on the second floor of the City Services Center, residents downstairs in the Community Room will be casting ballots on the first day of early voting, which runs through May 20 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 3:14 PM with the headline "Elections board to challenge 2 more sheriff candidates."