Atlantic Beach moves to reinstate town election commission, remove 1 member
ATLANTIC BEACH, S.C. (WMBF) – The Atlantic Beach Election Commission has been restored but without one of its members.
At a special-called meeting, the town council voted to reinstate its election commission weeks after first dissolving it.
The drama surrounding the election commission all stems from the Nov. 7 mayoral election where John David faced Atlantic Beach Town Councilwoman Josephine Isom.
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The Thursday following the election, the town’s election commission counted the votes and found David received 65 votes while Isom, received 64 votes and two ballots were cast for write-in candidates.
Isom filed a protest of the certification of the mayoral election, stating that several votes were cast by people who do not live in Atlantic Beach.
The election commission then reconvened on Friday morning for a recount, but the recount could not move forward because a court reporter was not present in order to transcribe the hearing.
The election commission elected to go into recess until 2 p.m. when a court reporter could be secured.
But during the recess, the Atlantic Beach Town Council called an emergency meeting at 12:30 p.m., where the town council voted in favor of removing Joe Montgomery, Kenneth McIver and Carolyn Gore from the Municipal Election Commission for the town of Atlantic Beach and dissolving the commission.
While McIver and Gore were re-instated on the elections commission during Tuesday’s meeting, the town council voted to remove Joe Montgomery from it.
Mayor Jake Evans, Councilwoman Jacqui Gore and Isom alleged that Montgomery was biased toward David and illegally attended his campaign events.
“The town saw that there was evidence of a violation of SC Code 7-13-75, and it showed a conflict of interest of an election commissioner engaging in political activity,” said Atlantic Beach town attorney Joseph Dickey.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed with the South Carolina Supreme Court by David over the town’s election will move forward.
David argued that the decision to dissolve the elections commission in the first place breaks South Carolina laws. According to state law, a municipality must have an elections commission in place unless the county takes over the election process for the city or town.
“These people are usurping the votes of Americans. One hundred and thirty-one United States citizens’ votes are not being counted,” David said.
Dickey said the town is focused on filing a response to the lawsuit, seeking to prove that Atlantic Beach maintained a fair election process amid all of the recent drama.
“This council and current mayor, and I’m sure other councilmembers that may possibly be seated later on, all want to ensure that the town of Atlantic Beach is moving forward in the right direction, and that the integrity of elections in all legal processes and procedures are handled in the right way, and that’s my job,” Dickey said.
As for the mayoral election, the results still have not been certified, but WMBF News is told that all the ballots are in a secure spot.
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