PRICHARD, Ala. — The ballots cast by former Prichard City Council President Earline Martin-Harris and her husband in the June 3 primary "should not be counted," the three-member Mobile County Board of Registrars determined in June 2014.
Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis confirmed the board’s decision, saying it was made during the canvassing of the primary ballots. He deferred to the board on the specific reasons the ballot was rejected. Board Chairwoman Pat Tyrrell, who served alongside members Virginia Delchamps and Shirley Short, could not be reached for comment.
A dispute over voting rights
Martin-Harris, who declined to comment in detail until she learned more, had said the previous week that she felt her civil rights were violated when she was told she could vote only a provisional ballot after arriving at Vigor High School in Prichard. She maintained that she held the identification and voter registration required to vote in the city.
"I had no reason to think I didn’t have the right to vote," Martin-Harris said, noting that she had received an updated voter registration card on May 5. She said she had been a registered voter in Prichard since 1992.
Fallout from a residency question
The dispute grew out of a controversy that had drawn attention in late May, when Martin-Harris resigned from the Prichard City Council amid questions about whether she actually lived in Daphne rather than Prichard. She had served on the council since 2000.
Her resignation, on May 21, came before a trial was set to begin over the legal questions surrounding her residency. Martin-Harris said she had stepped down because she lacked the financial means to "fight the state of Alabama," not because she conceded the underlying claim.
She said she could have chosen to run in the special election for the vacated District 2 council seat but had decided against it. "I don’t want to drag the city of Prichard into any more negative attention," she said.
A crowded race for the open seat
By the time of the canvass, four candidates had already signed up to run for the District 2 seat, which was to be decided in a special election on Aug. 26. The deadline to qualify was 5 p.m. on June 20, and the winner would hold the office until Prichard’s next municipal election in August 2016.
The candidates who had filed to run were Gwendolyn Williams of Snyder Drive in Prichard; Paula Blevins of North Atmore Avenue in Whistler; Sheila H. Poole of West Turner Road in Prichard; and Carlton N. Wallace of Charles E. Hall Drive in Eight Mile.
For Martin-Harris, the rejected ballot marked another turn in a saga that had already cost her a council seat she had held for well over a decade, leaving open questions about voting rights and residency that lingered well beyond election night.