Jackson Free Press

Sept. 22, 2008

After losing a legal battle to put a U.S. Senate special election on the bottom of the November ballot, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann released a revised sample ballot (PDF, 31 KB) for the Nov. 4 election today. The ballot displays the special election for the remainder of Trent Lott's U.S. Senate term directly below the Senate race between Erik Fleming and incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran.

Hosemann originally distributed a different sample that displayed the special election near the bottom of the ballot, below local school board elections. The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the original sample was illegal, but it refrained from actually ordering Hosemann, and Gov. Haley Barbour, who approved the ballot, from distributing a revised version.

Critics of the original ballot accused Barbour and Hosemann, both Republicans, of trying to hide the important race to help their fellow Republican, interim Sen. Roger Wicker. Wicker's rival, Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, has enjoyed at least an initial advantage in name recognition statewide, having served as governor before Barbour and is expected to benefit from the "Obama Effect" of increased Democratic turnout in November.

The revised ballot indicates the Wicker-Musgrove race's status with the words "Special Election" above the candidates' names. Like the original sample, the revised version does not list party affiliations for the special election, although it does for other federal races, including the regularly scheduled Senate race for the seat currently held by incumbent Thad Cochran, a Republican.

Jan Schaefer, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General explained that it is standard practice to list special election candidates without party affiliations. Like independent candidates, Wicker and Musgrove qualified by submitting a petition to the state election commission, rather than qualifying through their respective party committees.