Democratic Party Says Levon Manzie Stays on Ballot

Video

Enlarge Video

Download Video

Video RSS

Embed:

WKRG.com Related Resources

More –› Related Articles

News –› alabama

News –› mobile

Data –› Search Sanctioned Teachers

Discuss this in the forum

By Steve Alexander Reporter

M60o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr Democratic Party Says Levon Manzie Stays on Ballot

Published: Wed, July 02, 2008 - 8:36 pm
Last Updated: Wed, July 02, 2008 - 8:54 pm

Steve Alexander

There's been a setback in Fleet Belle's attempt to get his opponent, Levon Manzie, removed from the ballot in an upcoming school board runoff election.
Belle faces Manzie in a July 15 election for the District Four seat for the Mobile County School Board.
Election officials with the Mobile County Democratic Executive Committee met Wednesday afternoon to hear Belle's petition.
Belle has contended Manzie should be disqualified from the election because Manzie missed a deadline to file a statement of economic interest.
But Manzie said he filed the statement according to instructions he received from the Alabama Democratic Party.
Wednesday afternoon, members of a subcommittee ruled Manzie would stay on the ballot.
They said one factor in their decision was that neither Belle nor his attorney showed up for the hearing Wednesday.
After the hearing, Brad Warren, the chairman of the Mobile County Democratic Executive Committee, said, "We have ruled to allow Rev. Manzie to stay on the ballot in the District Four primary runoff for two reasons: Fleet Belle's failure to appear tonight before the committee and Fleet Belle failed to comply with Alabama Statute 17-13-80, which has to do with filing with the party for a contest of an election."
Manzie said, "We are happy to know that the executive committee has seen this matter in the way that the public sees it and we think that the final judge and jury on this decision should be the voters of District 4."
News Five has not been able to contact Belle thus far, but in an interview last week, he expressed his thoughts on members of the Democratic Party making the decision.
At that time, Belle said, "I really don't have much confidence in the process at this time and that's all I have to say about that part of it."
Earlier this week, Belle's attorney filed a legal action with the Alabama Supreme Court saying the court should require that Probate Court Judge Don Davis, not the Democratic Party, decide whether Manzie should stay on the ballot.
Belle made the same contention last week.
He said, "Whenever I filed my papers, I came under the jurisdiction of Judge Davis. Therefore, its a probate court issue. He (Davis) has said it is not. So, therefore, we are pursuing this beyond Judge Davis."
Belle's attorney has said he expects the Alabama Supreme Court to hand down a ruling before election day.

News Map