Chapter 3 (county council). A state law required that before a paper ballot was given to a voter, it had to be initialed on the back by a poll worker so that the initials showed when the ballots were folded and deposited in the ballot box. This applied to all paper ballots. Another state law, which applied only to affidavit ballots, was silent about initialing.64 The affidavit ballot is a paper ballot. Ms. Hobson challenged the election result in the Hinds County Circuit Court because several ballots that had not been initialed by a poll worker had not been counted. The circuit court awarded her 27 affidavit ballots that had been cast for her but had not been initialed by a polling place worker and six affidavit ballots that had been cast for her but whose envelopes had been erroneously opened early by poll workers, the ballots counted and returned to their envelopes. There was also one curbside ballot65 counted for Ms. Hobson and one uninitialed affidavit ballot counted for Mr. Wilbourn. (There were not more uninitialed ballots because voting machines were used at the election.) As a result, the court declared Ms. Hobson the winner over Mr. Wilbourn by two votes. It was stipulated by the parties that all of the voters whose ballots were involved in these challenges were legitimate registered voters and that there was no question as to the integrity of the six affidavit ballots that had been opened early by the poll workers. The Mississippi Supreme Court ostensibly focused on the basic rules of statutory construction, not the mandatory/directory approaches to election law, when it applied the law to the facts. But it was the mandatory/directory analysis that was used to resolve the questions raised by the exercise in statutory construction. First, the supreme court examined the rule that, in construing statutes, a specific law controls over a general law if they apply to the same subject matter. This would give weight to Ms. Hobson’s position that the affidavit ballots did not need to be initialed: the affidavit ballot statute, which does not mention initialing, is more specific to the subject matter (affidavit ballots) than the paper ballot statute, which requires initialing but refers generally to the subject matter (affidavit ballots are only one kind of paper ballot). Then the Mississippi Supreme Court examined the rule that, in construing statutes, two statutes that refer to the same subject matter should be read together in a way that achieved the legislative intent. This would give weight to Mr. Wilbourn’s position that the affidavit ballots had to be initialed and, because they were not, they were illegal and should not be counted. That is, the affidavit ballots were paper ballots, and the paper ballot statute supplied the initialing requirement that the affidavit ballot statute left out. Another statutory requirement, however, cut against Mr. Wilbourn’s argument. A ballot can be initialed only after the voter signs a receipt book. But a person whose name is not on the voter registration list is not permitted to sign the receipt book and can only vote by affidavit ballot. Also, the purpose of the initialing requirement was seen by the supreme court as a means of avoiding ballot box stuffing, and the affidavit ballots cannot be used in ballot box stuffing because they are not put into the ballot box; they are held separately and counted separately. The parties had stipulated that no fraud took place (they had stipulated to all of the facts). In Mississippi, a person’s name had to be on the poll books (a list of registered voters) in order to vote. But a person whose name was not found on the voter registration list could make an affidavit that he or she had been illegally denied registration and could cast an “affidavit ballot.” The voter’s marked ballot and the affidavit were put into an envelope with the voter’s name on it. During the canvass of the ballots, the question of the challenged voter’s qualifications was resolved. If the voter was found to be qualified, the ballot was counted. 65 A disabled voter who cannot get into the polling place may wait in the car and have a ballot brought out to him or her. 64 67