Who is in Charge?
 

Primary Elections
 

Municipal Party Executive Committees are responsible for conducting all Primary Elections. Municipal Election Commissions have no authority to conduct Primary Elections for the parties. (Miss. Code Ann. §23-15-263 (1972))
 

Each Executive Committee shall have as many members as there are elected officers of the municipality. Members of the Executive Committee are elected in the Primary Election – their names are on the party primary ballot. Candidates for Executive Committee must complete a candidate qualifying form and submit it to the Municipal Clerk by the qualifying deadline for candidates for municipal elected offices. Vacancies on the Executive Committee are filled by the remaining Committee members. (Miss. Code Ann. §23-15-171 (1972))
 

A political party which does not have an Executive Committee may establish a temporary Committee to conduct a primary election and to serve until a permanent Committee is elected in the primary. The following steps are spelled out in Miss. Code Ann. §§23-15-313 and 315 (1972):
 

1.      Five (5) or more residents of the municipality who are members of the political party desiring to conduct a primary shall petition the     Chairman of the County Executive Committee of the party.
 

2.     The County Chairman shall call a “mass meeting” of the voters of that political party who reside in the municipality. The meeting should be held at a time and place designated in the call.
 

3.      For three (3) weeks preceding the date set for the meeting, the Chairman of the County Executive Committee must publish a copy of his/her call in some newspaper published in the municipality. If no newspaper is published in the municipality, then the Chairman of the County Executive Committee should post notices of the meeting in three (3) public places in the municipality not less than three (3) weeks before the date of the meeting.
 

4.       At the “mass meeting,” the party members shall select a temporary Municipal Executive Committee to serve until the Primary Election when the permanent Executive Committee will be elected.
 

General and Special Elections
 

Municipal Election Commissioners are responsible for conducting all general and special elections. The number of Commissioners that a municipality should have is based on its population. Municipalities with less than twenty-thousand (20,000) residents should have three (3) Commissioners; municipalities with more than twenty-thousand (20,000) but fewer than one hundred thousand (100,000) residents should have five (5) Commissioners; and municipalities with one hundred thousand (100,000) residents or more should have seven (7) Commissioners. (Miss. Code Ann. §23-15-221 (1972))

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