A conference call, originally scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday, between U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock and attorneys representing Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams and Democratic challenger Sheriel Perkins, has been postponed, according to McAdams.
“They’re waiting on the latest motion,” the mayor said this morning.
In July, McAdams moved the election challenge, originally filed in Leflore County Circuit Court, into federal court after Perkins claimed in her court filing that election officials and poll workers in the June 4 general election violated federal election laws.
Willie Perkins Sr., the attorney and husband of Sheriel Perkins, had said he would seek to have the case remanded back to circuit court.
Willie Perkins and McAdams’ principal attorney, Lem Montgomery III of Jackson, were not available for comment this morning.
In the original 14-page lawsuit, filed June 24, Perkins alleges that the city Election Commission, City Clerk Nick Joseph and unnamed poll workers violated two federal statutes — the Voting Rights Act and the Help America Vote Act — in a “racially motivated manipulation of the electoral process to the detriment of African-American voters.”
She is asking that the 206-vote victory by McAdams be overturned and that either Perkins be declared the winner or a new election be ordered.
McAdams, in a 10-page response denied most of allegations made by the Democratic challenger and that Perkins failed to include as defendants in the lawsuit city election officials she accuses of violating federal law.
