Circuit Clerks play an important role in county government, but what they do is often overlooked or misunderstood. Mike Butler, who has served as Newton County’s Circuit Clerk since 2012, offered to shed some light on the role his office plays in helping the county run smoothly.
Why did you decide to run for Circuit Clerk?
I” worked there in Newton at the grocery store for well over 20 years, and I enjoyed that job,” Butler said. “Looking back, what I miss about that job is seeing the people. I enjoyed that job, as a whole, but I extremely miss seeing some of the people from day to day. Of course, we don’t have as many people coming into the office like we did there.
“I was in the point in my life, looking at different changes, and Ms. Nancy Kidd (the previous Circuit Clerk) retired. I didn’t just say I was going to run for this office. I came up, talked to her, and kind of explored the office, seeing what the office was about, seeing if it was a good fit for me.
“I’ve always believed enjoy what you do in your life.
“My dad, he farms. A guy, one day, he asks him, ‘Mr. Bobby, you’re hot and sweaty, you’ve got hay all over you. Why are you out here doing all this hard work?’ He said, ‘It’s not hard work if you love what you do.’
“I’ll say that I’ve enjoyed 99-percent of this job. There’s been some days, with some things that you have to hear and listen to in court that’s kind of unsettling. Some days, some of the cases you sit through, you just don’t enjoy that process.
“This past summer I was elected to serve on the leadership board for our Circuit Clerk’s Association of Mississippi. Once you’re on the leadership team and fulfil those roles, you’re always on the leadership team until you leave office.
“That basically means we’ll be looking at different legislation that’s being presented to the legislators and see how it affects us. We may even look at legislation we want to be getting presented and see about getting that passed. We’re also involved in the training of new clerks, so I felt honored when the older clerks chose me.”
What does the Circuit Clerk’s Office do?
“Basically, of course, we’re registering people to vote. We assist Election Commissioners in conducting elections. Any type of civil lawsuits are filed in our office; anything over $3,500 will be filed in our office. Anything less than $3,500 can be filed, but normally they’ll go to Justice Court for that matter. Any type of criminal matters, any type of trials, we deal with indictments,” Butler said.
“We deal with the Grand Jury. Once people are indicted, the indictment comes to us, and that’s really when we’ll get involved in the process. We’ll issue the capiases. Once the capiases have been served, then the process of them being arraigned. Of course, they’ll be set for trial at that point.
“We’ll be the one making sure all the papers are in order, all the orders have been filed, any type of motions, all of that will be filed in our offices.
“During the trial, we’ll be responsible for making sure the judge has all the papers that he needs, we summons all the jurors.”
About Jury Selection
“There’s three Jury Commissioners,” Butler said. “One selected by the Chancery Judge, one by the Circuit Judge, one by the Board of Supervisors. They’re on 4-year terms, and they’re staggered also.
“Basically, all the names are put in alphabetical order, and then, let’s say we have 20,000 registered voters, lets use that number. A judge may come in and say, ‘I want 2,000 people available for this upcoming year.’ We’ll divide that 2,000 into 20,000. That’s in groups of 10; everyone is in groups of 10 at this point.
“The Jury Commissioners will come in here and review the list. Once they approve everything, they’ll select a number between 1 and 10. Let’s say the select the number two. That second person in that group of 10, that second person in that group of 10, all the way down to the last group of 10. I thought that was really interesting.
“We’ll have the numbers 1-10 written down on little slips of paper. We’ll mix them up and they’ll select a number out of that group.
“That’s the 2,000 people selected out of 20,000 for the upcoming year. And then the judge may come in and say, ‘I want 200 people selected for this upcoming term of court,’ and then the computer will randomly select the people out of that 2,000 to report to court.”
Marriage Licenses
“The Circuit Clerk is also responsible for issuing marriage licenses, Butler said.”
“A lot of people thing we also issue divorces, too,” he said. “However, that’s in the Chancery Clerk’s office. We marry them, they divorce them.”
What would you want people to know about the Circuit Clerk?
“Most of the citizens in the county, most of them won’t need the civil matters or criminal matters,” Butler said. “Of course, most people’s perception is elections, and we’re very involved in elections. Elections are evolving, and it has a lot of perceptions out there. People have a lot of concerns about elections right now.”
Hacking
“A lot of people are concerned about hacking,” Butler said. “As far as hacking is concerned, none of our election equipment is connected to the internet whatsoever. Everything is independent from the internet. Through the election setup, election day, and the L and A testing, which is logistics and accuracy testing, none of that is connected to the internet.
“The state has a lot of safe guards. They’ve got a guy in their offices, in our offices, making sure we’re protected. I mean, it’s just like your computer at home. Someone is always trying to plant some type of virus in our computers. Of course, our office, the Secretary of State’s office, has safeguards a little more advanced than what the average person might have.
“I guess the election side of it is what the public perceptions sees, more than anything else. For myself and the Election Commissioner’s office, when we’re not noticed, that means we’re doing our job. If we’re doing our jobs, it happens, and you don’t notice. When something goes wrong, that’s when we’re noticed.
Election Commissioners
“I just want to talk about our Election Commissioners, and the job they do. We work hand in hand. There’s five Election Commissioners.
“Of course, elections are being heavily scrutinized right now, and I believe the public has that right to watch that process.
“Not long after I was in office, in the 2012 presidential election, the Department of Justice had poll watchers in every county in the state of Mississippi, and they compiled a report of all the defaults they found throughout the counties. That report was several hundred pages long, and Newton County was not mentioned at all in that report.
“In the Chris McDaniel, Thad Cochran campaign, and that contested race, the majority of the counties in the state were sued. They came here twice, looking through our records.
“Again, I believe that is their right, part of the accountability process.
“They came through twice. First, they were looking for any type of crossover voting, which is basically anyone, who voted as a Democrat in the primary, and then tried to vote as Republican in the runoff. There were zero crossovers in Newton County.
“They came back again and did ballot box examinations. They were going through every box, precinct by precinct. They went through about 70-percent of our precincts and the guy said, ‘Look, I’m wasting your time, and I’m wasting my time. I’m going to another county.’
“A lot of people went in to make that happen. The Election Commissioners, the election day poll workers. I was just proud we were one of the few counties they found zero problems with.”
Staff
With only one full-time and one part-time employee, Butler said the Newton County Circuit Clerk’s office isn’t a huge enterprise.
“Our office is a very small office,” Butler said. “I think our office is the smallest in the state.
However, he said, the employees work hard to serve county residents to the best of their ability.
“They do a fantastic job,” he said.
Circuit Clerks are elected to 4-year terms, and Butler will be up for reelection in 2019 along with many other county officials. Throughout his term, he said he has strived to treat everyone the same, regardless of whether they come to the Circuit Clerk to get a marriage license or make a payment on court fees. He said he plans to run again but welcomes anyone interested in being Circuit Clerk to run against him.
