Starkville’s battle of the ballot comes to a close

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- Lynn Spruill is still the Mayor of Starkville.

A year-long legal challenge for leadership in the city of Starkville concludes today. In June of 2017, Lynn Spruill won the Mayor’s race by seven votes. Johnny Moore challenged those results in court. Since then she has defended her narrow victory in court.

A special judge was appointed to hear Moore’s election challenge. And today, the judge made his ruling.

The challenge from attorney Johnny Moore focused on absentee ballots and affidavit ballots. In making his decision, Special Judge Barry Ford tossed out one of 52 absentee ballots called into question. He subtracted one vote from Spruill, still leaving her with enough of a lead to be declared the victor.

“I think the judge came out in the same place that we’ve always thought it was and that Lynn won the election. And we’re very pleased, and Lynn has been working really hard all year at being mayor rather than letting this contest keep her from actually being mayor, and she’s going to go ahead and keep doing the great things she’s done for Starkville,” said Jim Mozingo.

Spruill says she is excited to get back to normal.

“I’m very pleased. Obviously, I want to continue being mayor, and this gives me the opportunity to do the things that I think we’re poised to do. I’m really excited about Starkville and everything associated with Starkville. It’s a wonderful opportunity that my lawyers have worked very hard, and I’ve been able to focus on the city, so I get to go back and do that,” said Spruill.

Johnny Moore’s attorney says that they were not expecting this ruling.

“Well, obviously, we are a little disappointed and frankly shocked. We felt like we put on a good case and think there are voters that cast a ballot that should’ve counted that we’re not and that the disappointing part is that democracy lost in our opinion. We were hoping for an explanation on each of the ballots of why they didn’t count,” said William Starks.

Judge Ford also ruled that there was no evidence of fraud during the election. Alfreda Outlaw says she can finally breathe.

“I am very pleased with the outcome because the judge proved that the election commission ran a clean race and that we went about all the rules and regulations to make our determination who was mayor and there was no prejudiced within our decisions it was based plainly on rules and regulations,” said Outlaw.

Now that the ruling has been made Spruill says it is time to make Starkville the best it can be.

“I just go back to work. Got budgets to do, we’ve got a sports tournament facility to build. In my opinion, we’ve got all kinds of things. Starkville is growing, and we’re gonna do some really great thing,” said Spruill.

We did try to reach out to Moore but did not hear back from him. He has 30 days to decide if he will appeal the decision.