Voter Purge Investigation

WLBT - Landrum To Ask For Federal Investigation - Candidate Calls for Federal Investigation into Purging - The names that were wrongly purged from Madison County's voter rolls between December and March have now been restored. Even the names of David Landrum, 3rd District Congressional candidate, and his wife and daughter. Landrum and his attorney, Dale Danks, plan to ask the U.S. Justice Department to investigate why it happened. "This past Sunday, when a rather detrimental news article appeared, (Landrum ) went from an active status to inactive status," Danks says. It's believed Election Commissioner Susan Sautermeister purged the rolls by herself without the approval of the entire commission, which violates federal law. Danks says some, if not all, of the changes were made from Sautermeister's home computer. If several pieces of official mail are returned as undeliverable to a voter's address, election commissioners can use that as one step in the process of removing someone from the rolls.

Incidentally, voter profile reports show two separate Madison County addressess for Landrum: 314 Lake Castle Road, and 105 Longleaf Place. Turns out it's the same house. Landrum says the street address for the house is in the process of being changed from Lake Castle to Longleaf. At least one jury summons addressed to Landrum was returned as undeliverable, but that alone is insufficient reason to purge anyone from the rolls. And records do show that Landrum voted in Madison County last November.

If the mass purging had not been caught, more than 10,000 people may have been forced to vote by affidavit ballot. "It would have been embarrassing to be running for Congress of the United States and be told in front of the cameras that I'm inactive," Landrum says.

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Clarion Ledger - Voter rolls: Punishment merited in Madison - Both Hosemann and Madison County Circuit Clerk Lee Westbrook said Wednesday all names should be on the poll books before Tuesday's primaries.

But that doesn't answer the question of how District 1 Election Commissioner Sue Sautermeister could remove the names without prior knowledge or approval of the other four election commissioners. Neither does it answer the question of "why?"

Speculation has abounded that the names were purged in connection with the controversy surrounding 3rd District Republican congressional candidate David Landrum's voting record. The majority of voters removed live in the 3rd District, and Landrum and his wife, Jill, were two of the voters removed. Westbrook said she personally restored both of them to the official books. She said she called Landrum, and "he assured me he still lived in Madison County."

Sautermeister would not say why she undertook the actions now or why she acted on her own, saying, "It doesn't matter because they've all been put back."

The purged rolls would not have solved the issue of whether Landrum voted in 2003 for Gov. Haley Barbour, as he has claimed, providing documents purportedly with his signature, since the item in dispute is a Hinds County voter roll which doesn't seem to conform to his and his wife's signatures.

But it could be used to cloud the issue.