Before the East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters office can even begin verifying signatures on the city of St. George incorporation petition, it must first resolve discrepancies over the boundaries of precincts that are only partially in the proposed new city.
Registrar Elaine Lamb says the boundaries of St. George includes several “part precincts” or split precincts that are only partially located in the proposed new city.
“We need to know from them what is in St. George and what is not,” Lamb says. “Some are going to be in and some are going to be out.”
St. George spokesman Lionel Rainey III says his group is working with the registrar’s office to identify the split precincts and clear up the matter. It will be several weeks, however, before issues with the St. George petition will be resolved. Lamb says her office won’t even start working on the petition and trying to validate its more than 17,000 signatures until after Tuesday’s election.
“We haven’t really found any problems yet with the petition because we haven’t fooled with it,” she says.
City-parish officials, meanwhile, say they have not filed suit to challenge the petition, as had been expected. Interim Parish Attorney Lea Anne Batson says no suit has been filed, adding the city “has no immediate plans to file one.”
Last week, attorney Mary Olive Pierson, who has represented the city-parish in a lawsuit regarding properties recently annexed into the city of Baton Rouge, said she would legally challenge the incorporation petition, either on behalf of the city-parish or as a private citizen. She was not available for comment as of this afternoon’s deadline.
