Special Election Committee Will Send Letters

The Special Election Committee reviewing state senator Ophelia Ford’s victory in Memphis will send letters to questionable voters.

Ford won her seat by 13 votes. But a senate committee has determined that 12 of the votes were fraudulent and has questions about 40 more believed to be cast out of their district.

The names of these voters will be published in a Memphis newspaper, and each person will be asked to return an affidavit, postmarked by April 3^rd. Senators are still ironing-out the wording, but the letters should be in the mail by early next week, giving the Shelby County voters about 14 days to explain themselves.

Retired judge Ben Cantrell was hired as special council. He says personally tracking down each of these voters would take too much manpower.

“You’re hauling people around just because they voted in an election and you’re subpoenaing them, so we’re trying to avoid that. In addition to the time and expense it required to do that, we’re trying to avoid disrupting people’s lives as much as possible.”

Senators say they don’t want to diminish voter turnout in future elections by inconveniencing citizens who actually voted.

The state senate has already voted once to void Ophelia Ford’s election win, but a federal judge has stepped in to protect voter rights, telling the committee it must make extraordinary efforts before throwing out anymore votes.