Controversy surrounds first day of absentee voting in Canton municipal elections

CANTON, Miss. (WLBT) - Absentee voting began Saturday in the city of Canton and early balloting is already fraught with controversy.

The first day of early voting was held March 27 at Canton City Hall, with individuals being able to cast ballots in the city clerk’s office.

One mayoral candidate says the clerk was violating state election law, and even turned him and another individual away from voting.

The clerk, Debra Brown, denies those claims, saying that the accuser was violating the law and threatening her life.

Saturday, Chip Matthews, the Republican candidate for Canton mayor, broadcast live on Facebook from the polling place.

In his videos, he claims that the city clerk had denied him and Canton Municipal Democratic Election Commission Chairman John Scanlan the chance to vote.

Scanlan later backed up Matthews’ claims.

“I went in about 8:30 this morning and was turned away,” he said. “The clerk, I thought I understood her to say, ‘we were not voting today. She was not ready to have us vote,’” he said. “It’s jacked up.”

Brown, though, said Scanlan and Matthews never asked for a ballot. Instead, she said Scanlan came in to ask for a copy of minutes from the board of aldermen’s Wednesday meeting.

“He never said one word about voting. If he did, he was talking with him,” Brown said, referring to a conversation Scanlan and Matthews had at the polling place. “I never heard him say that he wanted to vote.”

Brown contends that Matthews was illegally filming and that she spoke to two voters, and they did not give him permission to film.

Meanwhile, she said that the Republican candidate hurled racial epithets at her, saying “she needs to be in a cotton field picking cotton.”

Brown eventually called the police department to have him removed. The Madison Co. Sheriff’s Department also was called out.

“On Monday, the chief of police and I are going to the attorney general to see what can be done,” she said. “I’m constantly harassed like that every day.”

Matthews, who was not forced to leave, said he hated that Brown would make race a factor in this dispute.

“I would never say anything like that,” he said. “I did not say it and I would not say it.”

Matthews, a poll watcher, also says that he had the right to film in city hall, just not in the clerk’s office, where the balloting was going on.

“You’re allowed to film in city hall. You could not film in the area where they’re actually voting,” he said.

The 2021 elections have been mired in controversy from the start.

Multiple ballots were initially submitted to the Madison County Circuit Clerk claiming to be the legitimate Democratic ballot.

In one ballot, in particular, several candidates, including the mayor, two members of the board of aldermen, and a Democratic committee member were disqualified from seeking their party’s nomination, due to residency and other requirements.

The circuit clerk refused to print ballots, and multiple suits were filed in Madison County Circuit Court seeking that the disqualified candidates be added back onto the ballot.

Absentee voting was supposed to begin on Feb. 22.

However, a hearing was not held in the case until early March. Special Judge Lamar Pickard eventually ruled that all candidates could appear on the primary ballot.

Ballots were finally printed and released to the city clerk’s office last week.

Even with the judge’s ruling, Matthews questions the legitimacy of the Democratic ballot, saying the Mayor William Truly, his wife Natwassie, and at least one member of the board of aldermen do not reside in the city.

That fact aside, he pointed to several discrepancies he saw Saturday morning.

“There are no ballots. They were printing off ballots one at a time as people came in to vote. There was no sign-in book and no proper signs in the building,” he said. “Polling was supposed to open at 8 a.m., but it opened at 8:36.

“She (the city clerk) told the first few voters that there would be no voting today.”

He also said that no booths had been set up for voters to cast ballots in privacy. Rather, voters had to fill out their ballots on a table in full view of city surveillance.

“It was not being done properly today at all,” he said. “I just want what’s right.”

Brown, though, said the ballots had been printed and were being stored in the clerk’s vault.

She said that when individuals come into the vote, they must fill out an application to cast an absentee ballot.

Mississippi requires voters to meet at least one of more than a dozen criteria to be eligible for early voting.

While they’re filling out that application, she steps to the back to retrieve a ballot.

“After they fill out (the ballot), the ballot is sealed, they have to write their name across the flap, and it goes into the blue box in the vault,” she said.

As for not opening on time, Brown said Matthews was in the parking lot when she arrived.

“He was in the parking lot at eight this morning, about 7:57,” she said. “I rolled through until I could come back with someone else.

“It’s a bad feeling when you go to work every day scared.”

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