NATCHEZ, Miss. – The Board of Aldermen have again postponed Natchez’ municipal elections until June and July with hopes the coronovirus pandemic will have subsided so voters can gather at the polls without fear of getting sick.
“I pray the heat of the summer will actually help suppress the coronavirus,” Natchez Mayor Darryl Grennell said Thursday as the board was discussing the election delay.
Nearly two months after the original April 7 election day, the primary is now set for June 2. Any runoffs will be June 23 and the general election July 14. The new board-adopted schedule will have the new mayor and aldermen sworn in July 24 — three weeks after they’re supposed to be in office.
This is the second time the Board of Aldermen has delayed the election. The revised date set by the board in March was for the primary to be May 12, with the general election June 26.
Urging the board to move the May primary election to June, election commissioner Larry Gardner expressed concerns that the health of voters, candidates and pollworkers would be imperiled if person-to-person campaigning and polling took place in the next few weeks.
The state attorney general’s office says Natchez can legally postpone the election until after the new term begins July 1, according to city attorney Bob Latham.
Grennell is not running for re-election. Three candidates are vying to replace the one-term mayor. Three incumbent Natchez aldermen are being challenged while three others have no opponents. Latham said the current city officeholders can continue governing the city beyond their terms until the new ones are sworn in after the election results are certified by July 24.
However, he acknowledged the legality of delaying Natchez’ elections poses obvious questions that could wind up in court for judges to answer. “We’re in uncharted waters. It’s never been done before,” Latham told the board and mayor.
During a teleconference meeting Thursday, Grennell and the aldermen heard Natchez physician Blane Mire say more people here in Natchez-Adams County are vulnerable and will be sickened by the respiratory disease that’s overwhelmed the world. As of Thursday, four people from Adams County have died from the coronavirus and 70 here are confirmed to have been sickened by it, according to the state Department of Health.
“We are developing cases as fast or faster than other areas of Mississippi,” said Mire, an internal-medicine doctor who’s been advising Grennell and the aldermen during the COVID-19 crisis.
Mire said people should adhere to the state and local stay-at-home orders and follow the national social-distancing guidelines through May.
“If we lessen up and start doing things more normal in the coming month, we are going to have problems,” he said.
He noted virus outbreaks in Natchez nursing homes and grocery stores can be especially worrisome as the cases of people afflicted rise in the coming weeks. Mire expressed hopes the number of COVID-19 sufferers will “flatten out more toward the end of May” and that the heat of the coming months will “slow down” the virus and make it “dormant if not completely die off” this summer.
More information about Natchez elections, such as how to obtain absentee ballot applications, can be obtained by going to city’s website — natchez.ms.us — and telephoning or emailing the city clerk’s office: 601 445-7507 or sfortenberry@natchez.ms.us
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