Two priorities. One standard: Make the office work.
The plan at a glance
Elections you can verify
- Check the count before it is final.Legislature
- Close the gaps in ballot custody.Legislature
- Turn training into checklists.Legislature
- Give the Secretary of State direct enforcement authority.Legislature
- Where I stand: voter ID, citizenship checks, paper ballots, and absentee voting.
A front door for Mississippi business
- Filings that stay up, with public status updates during outages.
- A Mississippi Innovation Resource Guide, updated at least annually.
- Statewide intellectual property awareness.
- Clear pathways for Mississippi innovators.
The standard governing every division
- Systems the public can count on.
- Clear, written standards for how the office is managed.
- The same standard for every division, from public lands to securities and charities.
Legislature marks a proposal that needs a change in state law. I would ask the Legislature to make it.
Elections you can verify
Elections work only when officials have clear standards, practical support, and records that hold up after the polls close. The Archie Case showed what happens when those safeguards fail.
- Check the count before it is final. Mississippi votes on paper, but its audit law reviews procedures, not the count. It covers only the 2023, 2024, 2026 and 2027 general elections, cannot begin until the contest period has ended, and does not apply at all when an election is challenged. I would ask the Legislature to require the Secretary of State’s office, or its designees, to check the count in every primary and general election before the results are certified:
- hand count a random sample of paper ballots and compare it with the machine count for those same ballots;
- set the size of that sample by rule; and
- hand count the entire race in that county whenever the paper and the machine totals differ by more than a threshold set by rule and published before each election.
- Close the gaps in ballot custody. Mississippi law already requires seal logs, a signed receipt when a ballot box is delivered from the polls, and delivery of the boxes to the circuit clerk for safekeeping (Miss. Code Ann. §§ 23-15-519 (opens in a new tab), 23-15-911(1)(a) (opens in a new tab)). I would ask the Legislature to build on those rules:
- a signed receipt and inventory every time a box or its records change hands after that;
- custody records for poll books and memory devices;
- written confirmation from the clerk that every precinct box arrived; and
- notice to the Secretary of State within 24 hours when one did not.
See the rest of the plan
- Turn training into checklists. Mississippi already requires training for election commissioners and poll managers. I would add practical checklists for the points where elections actually break down, such as ballot orders, ballot counts, and custody handoffs. I would also ask the Legislature to require that each be signed off by the responsible official, with follow-up when a step is missed.
- Direct enforcement authority. When a county official fails to perform a mandatory election duty, the Secretary of State should be able to ask a court to order compliance. Today, by the office’s own account, it “has no enforcement authority over election-related issues” (opens in a new tab); problems are referred to the Attorney General or the local district attorney. The criminal penalties the law provides for some failures come only after the damage is done. I would ask the Legislature to give the Secretary of State that standing, which keeps a judge between the Secretary and the county.
View Sources
- Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-615 (Secretary of State authorized to audit election procedures of 2023, 2024, 2026 and 2027 general elections) (opens in a new tab)
- Mississippi Secretary of State: Report of 2024 Post-Election Audits (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
- Mississippi Secretary of State: Election Day Reminders for the 2026 Primary Election (March 3, 2026) (opens in a new tab)
Where I stand
Voter ID. Mississippi voters wrote photo ID into our Constitution in Section 249A. I support that requirement, and I will defend it. I will make sure the office gives counties the training and support to apply it consistently, including the protections and exceptions the Constitution provides.
Citizenship verification. Only United States citizens may vote in Mississippi elections. I support the citizenship checks Mississippi already requires, at registration and, under the 2026 SHIELD Act, across the entire voter roll every year. I will run them as the law requires. A lawful voter flagged by mistake deserves a clear, fast way to fix it before any removal. The public deserves an annual count of how many flagged voters turned out to be citizens.
Paper ballots that are actually counted. Every Mississippi county already uses paper ballots. I am not against machines. I am against machines that count something other than a paper ballot. Every vote should exist on paper, the machine should count that paper, and the paper should be preserved so the result can be checked later. The Archie trial showed what happens when the physical election records are not produced for verification.
Absentee voting. Mississippi law allows eligible voters to vote absentee in person at the courthouse or, in specified circumstances, by mail. I support in-person absentee voting where the voter shows photo ID and signs a sworn certificate in front of the clerk, with a real person behind the counter. I am not looking to change it.
A front door for Mississippi business
Every Mississippi corporation, LLC, and limited partnership starts with a filing at the Secretary of State’s office. The office administers business formations, annual reports, and state trademark registrations, so for most entrepreneurs it is the first stop they make with state government. A business filing is a lot like a deed: nobody thinks about it until something goes wrong. When it does, that business owner deserves a system that works and an office that answers.
- Filings that stay up. Modernize corporate-record systems, keep tested backups, and post public status updates during any outage. A business owner should never be left guessing whether the system or the filing is the problem.
- Publish a Mississippi Innovation Resource Guide. Maintain one clear statewide directory of public and private resources for starting, protecting, financing, and growing a Mississippi business, and update it at least annually.
- Build statewide intellectual property awareness. Work with schools, universities, economic-development organizations, and business groups to connect Mississippians with practical information about patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and protecting what they create.
- Make the office a front door for Mississippi innovators. Keep clear, neutral pathways to federal intellectual property resources, qualified private professionals, business-development organizations, and other existing help, so entrepreneurs know where to go next.
Why this matters
One of Mississippi’s greatest resources in the next century will be the intellectual property we develop here. The Secretary of State’s office should help connect entrepreneurs with the tools, protections, and sources of capital they need to turn new ideas into Mississippi businesses and jobs.
I am one of only 22 registered patent attorneys with a Mississippi address on the USPTO’s official roster. I understand how patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property protections help businesses protect what they build.
The standard governing every division
The Secretary of State’s responsibilities extend well beyond elections and business formation. Every division should operate under the same standards of accuracy, accessibility, accountability, and continuity.
Systems the public can count on
When a critical public system goes down, the public deserves prompt, plain updates on what failed and when it will be fixed. Mississippians filing a business record or checking an election deadline should never be left guessing.
See the plan
- Reliable backups and tested recovery systems.
- Independent security testing at least once a year, a clear incident-response plan, and vendor accountability, with a public summary of each year’s results.
- Public status information during outages and an after-action report following major failures.
How the office will be managed
Running the Secretary of State’s office well means more than winning the argument in any one courtroom. It means holding every division to a clear, written standard and being honest with the public about how the office is performing.
See the plan
- Clear responsibility for every division and core public service.
- Regular internal audits and timely responses to public requests.
- Service continuity and disaster recovery as standing management priorities.
- Respectful, responsive service to counties, businesses, charities, investors, and citizens.
The whole office deserves the same standard
The job reaches far beyond elections and corporate records. The Secretary of State serves as supervisory trustee over the management and leasing of more than 640,000 acres of Sixteenth Section public-school trust lands by local school districts. The office also regulates securities and securities professionals, registers and regulates charitable organizations and fund-raisers, and processes statewide notary applications. It also administers the Public Trust Tidelands program and the sale of tax-forfeited land, receives campaign finance and lobbying reports, and serves as the central filing office for most Uniform Commercial Code financing statements, the public notices lenders file to record liens on business property. Those records belong to the public and should be easy to find and use.
Those responsibilities touch schools, investors, charities, businesses, and families across Mississippi. They deserve the same emphasis on accurate records, dependable systems, clear public information, and accountability.
Why my background matters
Before law school, I obtained a securities license. Combined with my industrial-engineering training, computer-analysis work, and legal practice, that experience gives me practical familiarity with both regulated systems and the people who must navigate them.
Sixteenth Section lands (opens in a new tab) · Securities (opens in a new tab) · Charities (opens in a new tab) · Notaries (opens in a new tab)