VIDALIA — Several Concordia Parish Sheriff’s deputies testified Monday that they were asked to register to vote in Concordia Parish though they do not live there.

The testimony came during the election contest hearing to determine the results of the Oct. 20 primary election, in which challenger Glenn Lipsey lost by 21 votes to incumbent sheriff Randy Maxwell.

Testimony continued into the evening Monday, and will resume this morning. The trial will also continue Friday.

The contest resumed Monday after a 10-day recess ordered by Judge Sharon Marchman to give both sides time to take depositions and take care of other legal necessities.

When Vidalia resident Paul Cangemi was called to the witness stand, Lipsey’s attorney Brady King asked him if he knew Wayne Bertrand, a Concordia Parish correctional facility employee who had listed Cangemi’s address as his own for voting purposes.

Cangemi responded he had only met Bertrand once and did not know him.

When Bertrand took the stand, he admitted he lives in Natchez and he had used Cangemi’s address to register as a voter in Concordia Parish, though he claimed the address was offered to him by Cangemi through Bertrand’s wife, who cuts Cangemi’s hair. He said he voted out of loyalty.

“I wanted to support the sheriff in any way I possibly could,” he said.

Upon further questioning, Bertrand said the decision to register to vote in the parish came at the suggestion of sheriff’s office employees, and that being a registered voter in Concordia Parish was even a condition of his being hired by the sheriff’s office.

Vidalia resident Elizabeth Atkins, who works in one of the correctional facilities on Louisiana 15, also testified she allowed Rivers Correctional Facility Assistant Warden Pat Smith to use her address to register to vote in Concordia Parish.

Smith later testified she lives in St. Joseph, in Tensas Parish.

Atkins said she was aware Smith — who occasionally spends the night there when she is on-call at the correctional facility — was using her address for voting purposes.

“She (Smith) needed an address to vote in Concordia Parish,” Atkins said.

When King asked Atkins why Smith would need to vote in Concordia Parish, Atkins replied it was because she worked for the sheriff’s office.

Atkins later testified that though she had voted in previous elections in Tensas Parish, she changed her registration to Concordia Parish at the request of her supervisor, Warden Ricky Spinner.

“I stay down here, I bought my car down here, I buy groceries down here,” she said. “I spend more time here than anywhere else.”

Though Smith testified she lives in Tensas Parish with her husband, her driver’s license lists Atkins’ address as her residence.

Representing Maxwell, Vidalia Attorney Jack McLemore asked Smith to read an application for employment at the sheriff’s office.

One of the requirements included was those employed by the sheriff’s office must reside in the parish for which they are commissioned.

Lipsey’s attorney Brady King responded by asking Smith directly if she was asked to register to vote or to reside in the parish.

She responded by saying she was asked to register to vote.

CPSO deputy Dale Cowan also testified he and his wife had a similar arrangement to that of Atkins and Smith with CPSO dispatcher Jane Clark.

Clark testified she sleeps at Cowan’s home four to five nights a month if she is too tired to drive to her home in Catahoula Parish after she gets off work.

Clark lived at the Catahoula Parish residence with her mother, who recently died from Alzheimer’s complications, but plans to move to Concordia Parish — where she has been registered to vote since 1976 — soon, Clark said.

Though Clark testified she eats meals and keeps clothes at the Cowan residence, which is listed as her address on her driver’s license, her car is registered in Catahoula Parish.

Clark also testified there is no requirement to be a registered voter in Concordia Parish under the CPSO employee handbook.

The court also heard testimony from John Kitchen, an employee of the Secretary of State’s office who supervises voting machines for the area.

Kitchen was a witness for Maxwell’s legal team, and was heard out of order Monday so he could return to work at the Secretary of State’s office. He was called to testify about the voting machines and how they work because Lipsey’s suit alleges some irregularities with the machines.

Kitchen said it has never been his experience for one of the new voting machines or their memory cartridges to fail to count a vote.

When attorney Sherri Morris — representing Lipsey — asked Kitchen what could account for a discrepancy between the number of names on the voting rolls and the number of votes actually cast on a machine, Kitchen said it was likely human error.

It is possible for a voter to think they cast a vote if an election commissioner has not activated the machine, Kitchen said.

The reason for that mistake could be made is because the machine will light up buttons briefly, Kitchen said.

The temporary lighting is for testing purposes, he said, and anyone who tried to cast a vote on a machine that has not been activated did not actually cast a vote.

Kitchen said he only received three calls concerning machines on Election Day, and all of them were resolved without incident.