By Ray King
Jefferson County Board of Election Commissioner Stu Soffer, who at the last meeting of the board pushed through a motion to censure fellow Commissioner Ted Davis withdrew his motion during a meeting Monday and asked that the matter be dropped.
After the meeting, Davis was asked about Soffer’s action:
In making the motion to withdraw the censorship, Soffer told Commission Chairman Mike Adam that the issues between himself and Davis would be handled as a civil matter.
In a letter to Adam dated Sept. 18, Soffer said Davis had delivered a “partisan political attack on me” during a meeting of the election commission on Sept. 10. He went on to say that Davis’s comments were similar to comments from the Chairman of the State Democratic Party who had called for Soffer’s resignation or that he be fired as a commissioner.
Soffer and Adam are Republicans while Davis is a Democrat.
In the letter, Soffer went on to say, “What Commissioner Davis fails to comprehend is election commissioners are equal in standing. He has no authority, jurisdiction or say over what other election commissioners do yet he continues to pursue exercising such authority over you and I.
Adam and Soffer voted to withdraw the censure while Davis abstained.
In another matter, the commission voted unanimously to relocate four voting precincts which had been at New Town Missionary Baptist Church but were moved to another location back to New Town.
The commission had previously voted to consolidate three low voting sites, New Town, the Pine Bluff School Administration Building and Old Morning Star Baptist Church with other polling sites but later reversed their decision on the school administration buiding and Old Morning Star.
After the meeting, Soffer gave reporters a letter about the closing of the three, saying they were legally made physically justifiable decisions,
“Having said that, in reflection, we should not have omitted New Town because its closure was predicated on the same criteria,” Soffer said. “Today’s action corrected that oversight.”
