Friday’s hearing in the long-running Greenwood mayoral election challenge between Mayor Carolyn McAdams and Sheriel Perkins produced no clear sense of where the case is headed.
Perkins, a Democratic former mayor of the city, filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the 2013 election, which McAdams, the independent incumbent, won by 206 votes.
Perkins claims the election results were tainted by irregularities and fraud that benefited McAdams. Perkins is represented by her husband, Greenwood attorney Willie Perkins.
McAdams’ legal team, led by attorney Lem Montgomery III of the Jackson law firm of Butler Snow, presented a motion for summary judgment in April. Specially appointed Circuit Judge Henry Lackey rejected it May 20, and the team has moved that he reconsider.
Lackey gave no indication when he would rule on the motion. If he were to grant summary judgment, the case would not go to trial.
“I’ll give you my schedule after I have ruled and after I have conferred with the clerk — if we have a trial,” he said at the end of the 105-minute hearing.
Montgomery said Perkins had failed to supply requested evidence for the summary judgment record — “not just a promise of evidence, not just any evidence, but competent, admissible proof.”
Montgomery said Perkins submitted no proof on six specific counts listed in the original lawsuit at the first summary judgment hearing.
“Not only did they not put admissible evidence into the record — they didn’t attach anything at all,” he said. “There were only promises of evidence.”
Willie Perkins replied that some of the proof sought by Montgomery included 56 contested absentee ballots that were lacking witness signatures or were not signed correctly.
“We have listed in the pretrial order all of the absentee voters whose ballots are in question,” Perkins said.
The problem is those documents are under lock and key, he said.
“The first time we have trial or until the first time that this court enters an order for the clerk or the Election Commission to bring these materials before the court, we can identify each and every one of them,” Perkins said.
The attorney expressed his frustration with the pace of the proceedings: “This is going on now for two years. Ordinarily, we’d have a trial by now.”
Montgomery said a lack of proof in both the initial pretrial order and the summary judgment record should be grounds for dismissal.
Perkins said confusion in Ward 1 and Ward 2 led to at least 500 illegal votes being cast.
“Affidavits show these folks voted in the wrong precinct,” he said. “(When) Ward 2 folks went to the polls, the books were not there; they were over in Ward 1.”
Regarding affidavits signed by poll watchers Rosetta Harris and state Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, attesting to the confusion in Ward 1 and Ward 2 on election day, Montgomery said, the affidavits were “strange.”
“What the affidavits did say was that for a certain amount of time the poll books were switched. The affidavits don’t testify that any particular voter in the city of Greenwood voted on the wrong machine,” he said.
Montgomery said the confusion over the poll books is irrelevant and not “something that would just wipe out all votes that were cast during that time.”
He said the poll book requirement is not mandatory under state law but is a “directory statute.”
“You just conform as closely as you can,” he said. “We shouldn’t have a trial about whether two poll books were switched on election day when that’s just a directory statute.”
Perkins called Montgomery’s assertion “almost incredible” and “ridiculous,” adding, “I’ve never heard that argument before.”
In addition, Perkins alleged that the McAdams camp had engaged in influence peddling and vote buying. He said he has footage of a young man saying he voted for McAdams in exchange for a new pair of shoes.
Montgomery countered that the idea “that the mayor can’t be kind to a citizen” is “silly” and not fraud.
In a second instance, Perkins said, McAdams had the city place a new culvert at the edge of a resident’s yard in exchange for taking down a Perkins sign and putting up a McAdams sign.
Montgomery said the culvert allegation was put to rest when Susan Bailey, director of the city’s Public Works Department, provided an affidavit denying it.
•Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
