The East Baton Rouge Democratic Party Executive Committee will meet tonight to vote again on a slate of candidates to endorse in the upcoming election—two weeks after it approved a ballot that included C. Denise Marcelle as its choice for mayor.
DPEC Chairwoman Carolyn Hill says the highly unusual re-vote is needed because of questions about whether the committee’s policy and procedures were followed when it held the first vote on Oct. 5. She says it has nothing to do with the outcome of the vote, or with the fact that Marcelle is a member of the 14-person executive committee and encouraged the group to make an endorsement in the primary.
“My goal was to make sure it was a fair process,” she says. “Denise is not a factor at all. The factor in this matter is strictly policy, procedure and did we follow it. It has nothing to do with Marcelle, her candidacy and her winning the endorsement.”
The DPEC endorsement is significant because the committee prints and distributes sample ballots that many voters take with them to the polls on Election Day.
Hill says several committee rules were violated during the first vote. Among them: the group voted behind closed doors in an executive session. Also, there wasn’t a judge present to oversee the process and certify the results. Hill says she knew the committee was violating the rules when it voted that night, adding she recommended deferring the vote until a later date.
“But I’m just one person on the committee, even though I’m chair,” she says. “At the end of the day, I can make a recommendation but it’s the will of the committee to do what it wants.”
Marcelle says she doesn’t think it’s fair to hold another vote tonight. She confirms she encouraged the committee to make an endorsement in the primary—which some opposed because so many democratic candidates are in the race. But she says she never campaigned for the committee’s endorsement.
“I didn’t call any member of the committee and ask for their vote,” she says. “I stayed away from the process because I didn’t want there to be any improprieties.”
Leading democratic contender Sharon Weston Broome did not return a call seeking comment before this morning’s deadline. Marcelle says she will be unable to attend tonight’s meeting because of a previously scheduled mayoral forum hosted by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, and she questions what will happen if other committee members who already cast a vote are also unable to attend—or if committee members who didn’t attend the Oct. 5 meeting attend tonight’s and upset the outcome of the first vote.
“If you reopen the process, what’s going to happen to the candidates who received an endorsement by one vote?” she says. “There are too many people who earned the endorsement that could now lose the endorsement.”
The DPEC meets at 6:30 on the 8th floor of the Governmental Building, 222 St. Louis St.
—Stephanie Riegel
