JACKSON —
Four congressional candidates who’ve been running low-profile campaigns have until next Tuesday to appeal their removal from Mississippi’s Nov. 2 general election ballot.
The three-member state Board of Election Commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to take the Reform Party candidates off the ballot because of a dispute about the state party’s leadership and questions about whether the party followed its own procedures in choosing the candidates.
Republican Gov. Haley Barbour said it’s unfair to allow any party’s candidates on a ballot if officials can’t verify they were properly chosen.
“Take them off. Send them notice we’ve taken them off,” Barbour told the other two election commissioners, Republican Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann and Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood.
The candidates removed from the ballot are Barbara Dale Washer of Hattiesburg, who filed to run in northern Mississippi’s 1st District; Ashley Norwood of Canton in the Delta’s 2nd District; Tracella Lou O’Hara Hill of Hattiesburg in the central 3rd District; and Anna Jewel Revies of Hattiesburg in the southern 4th District.
They’ve been considered long-shot candidates, and it’s unclear whether their absence would affect the outcome of any of the races.
Washer and Hill live outside the districts where they filed to run, but that’s allowed and their residency was not the reason they were taken off the ballot.
Hosemann said the qualifying papers for the four candidates were submitted in late December by Thomas Randolph Huffmaster, who called himself chairman of the Reform Party of Mississippi.
Hosemann said his office received a sworn statement Monday from the national Reform Party chairman, David Collison of Texas, that Huffmaster was not the Mississippi Reform Party chairman and didn’t have the authority to submit candidates’ names.
One of Hosemann’s staff members also said he had been unable to reach Huffmaster, Washer, Norwood, Hill and Revies. No Reform Party representative attended the commission meeting.
After the meeting, Washer answered her home telephone on the first ring when The Associated Press called to ask about her candidacy. The 63-year-old retired teacher said she didn’t know the election commissioners were meeting, or that they planned to discuss whether she should be on the ballot.
“This is the first I’ve actually heard of this,” Washer said.
She said there are disputes about who’s chairman of the Mississippi Reform Party and of the national Reform Party. She said Collison is aligned with one group of people in Mississippi who claim the state Reform Party leadership, while she and Huffmaster are part of a different group. Washer said she believes Huffmaster is the legitimate state chairman and she is vice chairwoman.
Washer said the four congressional candidates were chosen during a telephone conference call in which six or seven Reform Party members participated.
She said she’s not sure whether she’ll appeal to try to be put back on the ballot. Washer said she has been to northern Mississippi a few times to campaign.
“I haven’t done as much as I would’ve liked,” she said.
A ballot approved Wednesday has eight candidates in the 1st District, two in the 2nd, two in the 3rd and three in the 4th.
The Federal Election Commission website on Wednesday showed no campaign finance reports for the Reform Party candidates in Mississippi.
Norwood and Hill could not immediately be reached for comment. Revies answered her telephone but said she was busy and would try to call back.
State News
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