The Shelby County Election Commission on Monday, Oct. 16, unanimously certified the Memphis municipal election results.

The certification came as a Memphis City Council candidate questioned how the election was conducted after a poll inspector had her car broken into the day before Thursday, Oct. 5, Election Day.

Post election council session discusses runoffs and primaries, broadband

The election commission acknowledged the robbery on Monday before it voted to certify the results. 

Election Administrator Linda Phillips said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had looked into the incident and found no irregularities. She first notified the state coordinator of elections who then notified Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett, who requested the TBI investigation.

Phillips also told Watkins Uiberall PLLC, the accounting firm that reviews election results ahead of certification, about the incident. The firm found no irregularities with the results from that polling place or others.

“There were a lot of red flags that were seen by candidates in that room,” defeated city council candidate Jerred Price told The Daily Memphian as he left Monday’s meeting. “Not at any point are we saying the votes were altered. What we are saying is that codes and keys were in the hands of unauthorized people. And anytime that happens it needs to be taken seriously and reviewed.”

Others in the group of 23 people who showed up for Monday’s meeting said they thought the car break-in was suspicious, including talk show host Thaddeus Matthews who questioned why the box of election materials was left untouched in the trunk.

Inside the unofficial vote tallies, mandates, margins and 2024 referendums

Price called for an independent investigation of the incident.

The car break-in happened Oct. 4 when the inspector found the window of her Nissan Rogue broken and a backpack with $1,200 in $100 bills missing as well as a cell phone and a set of keys used to open voting machines.

The keys were found later in a grassy area just north of where the car was parked.

Phillips and Ron Boozer, elections chief technician and a retired Memphis Police officer, said a file box of election forms and other items — including keys and codes needed to open and close voting machines — were found in the trunk of the car apparently unopened with nothing missing.

Phillips said the keys and codes alone couldn’t have been used to get into the voting machines without other failsafes coming into play like breaking the seal on an election machine or the requirement of a second key held by another person to physically open them.

The Memphis Police Department on Oct. 5 arrested 18-year-old Mardarious Boyce on suspicion of burglary from an automobile in connection to the incident. 

Analysis: City election day dominated by race for Memphis mayor

Price has spent much of the past week questioning the election results because of the burglary, prompting an email rebuke from Phillips who compared him to former President Donald Trump. 

Election commissioner Vanecia Kimbrow said Phillips’ response was “not proper” but said she was satisfied enough with how it was handled to vote to certify the results.

She and election commissioner Andre Wharton each said they would like to review procedures for such instances. That could include hearing from the inspector whose car was broken into.

“We’ve got to have closure at least for now,” Wharton said. “I don’t think this analysis and investigation should be over.”

Wharton cited the legal standard of errors that are proven “harmless” that some courts cite to acknowledge mistakes but mistakes that didn’t affect the process involved and being contested in a lawsuit.

Political Roundup: Early voting is up, as heat rises in mayoral, council races

Wharton and Kimbrow, both attorneys, also noted that with the certification, any candidate who wants to challenge the results can now file a lawsuit in Chancery Court. 

For such a challenge to succeed, a candidate would have to prove irregularities in the vote and prove there were enough irregularities to change an election’s outcome.

Kimbrow noted that the election day votes cast in Price’s bid for council Super District 8 Position 3 at the three polling places in question came to less than 1,000 among all seven candidates in the race. 

Yolanda Cooper Sutton won the seat with 9,410 votes. Brian Harris finished second with 7,602 votes and Price third with 6,951, according to the certified vote count.

Samuel Hardiman contributed to this story.