Gulfport council sets Feb. 18 special election for Ward 5, approves extra clerk help for redistricting

The Gulfport City Council voted unanimously on Jan. 7 to call a special election for the vacant Ward 5 seat on Feb. 18 and to approve related contracts to run the election.

Councilman Justin Casey moved the resolution calling the election, which was seconded and carried without objection. The council also approved a letter agreement with election vendor Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and a first amendment to the city’s contract with the Harrison County circuit clerk to cover extra work and overtime needed to input new ward boundaries into the county’s SIMS election system.

Why it matters: redistricting changed ward lines and the SIMS voter/address library must be updated for all seven wards before the system can be opened for the special election ballot. The circuit clerk warned that opening SIMS for a Ward 5 special election would “lock down the address library” and that staff and clerks would need overtime to complete the work on a compressed timeline.

Justin Clark, Harrison County circuit clerk, told the council, “I—0...I'll be straight up honest with you. It's it's a massive undertaking to, basically cut a month's time that I had out to get all 7 wards done.” Clark said he planned to have clerks work weekends and expected to have the data ready within about a week if given the resources.

City Attorney Bruni said legal notice requirements and calendar limits constrained the council nd recommended the Feb. 18 date so a statutory runoff window could be met. “Statute requires 3 consecutive weeks,” Bruni said, describing the newspaper-notice requirement the administration had prepared to meet once the council adopted the order.

Key dates and process details recorded in the meeting: - Qualifying for the special election: Jan. 8 through Jan. 29 (end of day). Candidates qualify by petition; the clerk said that requires 50 signatures from registered voters. - The council set Feb. 18 as the special election date. If a runoff is required under state law, the runoff date would fall on March 11. - Absentee voting: the city clerk—0said absentee voting will begin after ballots are printed and available, and the clerk—0office planned to be open for absentee voting on Feb. 15 and on the two Saturdays preceding the election, subject to when printed ballots are available. - Voter notification: Clark said SIMS will generate new voter registration cards for voters whose ward changed; the clerk—0said she had prepared a letter to go with those cards explaining the change and the upcoming election and offered to send the letter to council before cards are mailed.

The council approved the election resolution and the two contract items as a block (agenda items 9, 10, 10a and 20a) to ensure the clerk and vendor could meet compressed production and printing timelines. No council member recorded a dissent on those items.

The clerk and city attorney said the full timeline and all election dates would be posted to the city website the next day and that the city would publish the required legal notices in the newspaper.

The council—0did not take any additional policy action on redistricting itself; the votes were procedural to permit the special election and to fund the extra election-related work.

Votes at a glance: - Agenda items 9, 10, 10a, 20a (call special election for Ward 5; ES&S letter agreement; contract amendment with circuit clerk to cover overtime and extra work): approved by voice vote, carried unanimously (no roll-call dissent recorded).