61. The somewhat strange election of a judge in Jones County, Mississippi.

After the polls closed on election day earlier this month the results of the District 3-Justice Court judge race in Jones County, Mississippi, looked like this: 4,901 votes for Travis Haynes, 2,042 votes for Marian Allen. That’s 71 percent for Haynes, 29 percent for Allen. No one disputes that outcome. Yet, on Monday, Allen went to the Jones County Circuit Clerk’s office and formally contested the election.

Why?

It needs to be pointed out first that, according to the Mississippi Secretary of State office, anyone seeking to run for Justice Court judge must qualify between Jan. 3 and 5 p.m. on Feb. 1. Two people qualified to run for District 3-Justice Court judge in Jones County during that timeframe this year. One was Allen. The other was David Lyons, the longtime incumbent who has served as District 3-Justice Court judge for more than twenty-five years. No one else qualified.

Lyons suffered a stroke sometime last spring. In April, he went on medical leave. In May, the Jones County Board of Supervisors voted to let Haynes handle the District 3-Justice Court judge’s workload until Lyons could return to the bench.

In August, Mississippi held primary elections but the District 3-Justice Court judge race was not affected because neither Lyons, a Republican, or Allen, a Democrat, had a primary opponent, meaning the two of them were set to face off in the November general election. (Justice Court judges are the only Mississippi judges who run for their positions in partisan races.)

In mid-September I became curious about whether Lyons had come off medical leave and gone back to serving as District 3-Justice Court judge. If he remained on medical leave, I wondered, how might that affect the general election? I wondered, too, if his status regarding medical leave was something voters should be aware of. So I reached out to the county administrator and Jones County Board of Supervisors attorney and asked if Lyons was back on the bench. I asked if Haynes still handled the District 3-Justice Court workload. I asked if someone other than Haynes handled the workload. I did not receive a response to those questions.

Within five days, though, the Laurel Leader-Call, the local newspaper, reported that Lyons was withdrawing from the District 3-Justice Court judge race. The paper quoted from an affidavit Lyons signed in which the recovery process he had faced since having a stroke was described as “arduous.” “Currently, the outcome of my recovery is unclear,” the affidavit stated.

Both the timing of Lyons’ withdrawal and the reason are important.

Mississippi law states that if a party nominee for an elected office dies or withdraws from a race for a “legitimate nonpolitical reason” between the primary and general election, then “the executive committee with which the original nominee qualified as a candidate may nominate a substitute nominee for the office.” Lyons definitely withdrew between the primary and the general election. As far as what qualifies as a “legitimate nonpolitical reason,” Mississippi law spells out that there are three such reasons, and one is: “Reasons of health, which shall include any health condition which, in the written opinion of a medical doctor, would be harmful to the health of the candidate if he or she continued.” That is why Lyons withdrew from the race via a sworn affidavit, and though the Leader-Call story did not mention a doctor’s opinion, I am guessing the affidavit, at a minimum, referenced a doctor’s opinion.

I reckon it is fair to think that the only person who knows why Lyons chose to withdraw when he did is Lyons. But his withdrawal for medical reasons between the primary and general election allowed the Jones County Republican Party to replace him on the ballot with Haynes.

Here’s where it gets interesting, though.

Lyons’ submitted his affidavit to withdraw on Sept. 21, 2023. State law says the affidavit must be submitted to the Mississippi Republican Party chairman, as well as to the State Board of Election Commissioners. I do not know when or if the affidavit was submitted to either. I also do not know if the State Board of Election Commissioners formally approved Lyons’ reason for withdrawing (though I have no reason to think they wouldn’t, especially since that board is made up of three Republicans: the governor, the attorney general and the secretary of state). But if the State Board of Election Commissioners did not approve Lyons’ withdrawal from the race within five days of receiving his affidavit, no one could be substituted in his place, according to state law.

What I do know is, according to the Mississippi Secretary of State office, absentee ballots for this year’s general election were to be made available to the public on Sept. 23, 2023. (In fact, the Secretary of State office’s official 2023 election calendar stated those ballots “must” be available on that date.) Because of Lyons’ withdrawal—two days before absentee ballots were scheduled to be made available—and the executive committee of the Jones County Republican Party’s decision to replace him with Haynes, absentee ballots were not available in Jones County on Sept. 23. Instead, they were made available four days later on Sept. 27. On that same day, Emily Wagster Pettus, an Associated Press reporter, asked Jones County Circuit Clerk Concetta Brooks about absentee ballots not being made available in Jones County by the date that the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office said they “must” be made available.

“Nobody’s been disenfranchised,” Brooks said.

But Brooks also told Pettus multiple people complained to her office on Sept. 25 and Sept. 26 about absentee ballots not being available on those dates. If the people who voiced those complaints—or anyone else—attempted to vote via absentee ballot on Sept. 25 or Sept. 26 (or before noon on Sept. 27), for any candidate, in any race, they could not, which means they were denied. That is being disenfranchised.

So Allen has formally contested the election. She claims Haynes’ name should not have been allowed on the ballot. She claims the ballots were improperly reprinted in order to remove Lyons’ name and include Haynes’ name. She claims Brooks, in her capacity as Jones County Circuit Clerk, deprived people of their rights. I am no jurist, so my opinion on the legal merits of Allen’s contest does not matter. I have no idea what may come of the contest. I sure am glad Allen is challenging the election, though. It is her right to do so. Also, and more broadly, Justice Court judges in Mississippi have tremendous power.

They decide outcomes of civil cases (those worth up to $3,500) and many misdemeanors and traffic violations. They also set bond amounts for felonies. Most importantly, they can sign search warrants, which means they can reduce a citizen’s rights to near zero in the two seconds it takes to scribble a signature on paper. Even so, they are not required to have graduated from a law school. Meanwhile, they make almost $200,000 over the course of their four-year terms.

So the path to becoming a Justice Court judge in Mississippi should not be trivialized or reduced to some narrow and obscurely defined partisan gamesmanship that pivots around arbitrary dates on a calendar. And if it is, or isn’t, it should stand some scrutiny. I hope Allen pushes back on and pulls against the circumstances around that election and its outcome all that she wants and in every possible way.