The Archie Case
Election safeguards must protect every voter and every lawful candidate, regardless of party.
Let me state the obvious.
David Archie is a Democrat. That is exactly why the case means something.
It is easy to demand that the rules be followed when the rules favor your side. Anybody can do that. The test of whether you actually believe in election integrity is whether you enforce it when the person on the wrong end of a broken system is somebody from another party.
The Circuit Clerk testified he had never had possession of the District 2 ballot boxes. No ballots, machine tapes, signature books, or other physical election records were produced in court. A court found that the will of the voters could not be determined and ordered a new election. It did not find fraud. It found that the safeguards had failed.
Incompetence can do as much damage as fraud.
If that had happened to a Republican in DeSoto County, I would want somebody to do exactly what I did. So I did it.
One standard. Not correctly for some people. Correctly, period.
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Why the case ran from 2023 to 2026
David Archie filed his election contest with the Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee in August 2023. His petition for judicial review was due ten days later. On the tenth day, a cyberattack shut down Hinds County government computers, and the Circuit Clerk sent his staff home. Mr. Archie filed the next day. The defendant moved to dismiss the petition as untimely, and I was hired to oppose that motion.
The trial court dismissed the case. After an appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court sent it back in late 2024 for a hearing on whether the Clerk’s office had been closed on the deadline. The issue mattered because Mississippi law extends a filing deadline when the Clerk’s office is closed, until the next day the office opens. Following that hearing in 2025, the trial court found that the office had been closed and that the petition was timely. The defendant then attempted another appeal. I moved to dismiss that appeal, the motion was granted, and the case was set for trial.
The case at a glance
View current case status and filings
Case status last updated: September 2, 2026.
Every legitimate vote represents a person who got up, stood in line, and decided to trust a stranger with their voice. They are owed care, not carelessness.The Reform Plan
Failures like those uncovered in the Archie case should not require a lawsuit to bring them to light.
I am proposing that the Legislature require the following. The Secretary of State’s office does not have this authority today, it would require new law.
Immediate notice
Require notice to the Secretary of State when any election contest is filed and at each subsequent stage of the proceeding.
Authority to participate
Permit the Secretary of State to step in when a case raises significant election-administration issues.
Preserve the record
Ensure ballots, materials, and records are preserved, and use what each contest reveals to improve elections statewide.