WOODVILLE — More than 10 months after the initial elections, Wilkinson County voters will head to the polls Tuesday to decide the results of the August 2007 Democratic primary in what is essentially a court ordered do-over.

Candidates Lynn Tolliver Delaney, Jessie Stewart and Kirk Smith challenged the results of the elections for circuit clerk, sheriff and district two supervisor, soon after the initial election.

Delaney is seeking the position of circuit clerk, Stewart is pursuing the sheriff’s seat and Smith is looking to reclaim the supervisor’s chair for district two.

All three were reportedly leading in the polls until the paper ballots — affidavit, absentee and curbside ballots — were counted.

Incumbent Circuit Clerk Mon Cree Allen, Sheriff Reginald “Pip” Jackson and District Two Supervisor Richard Hollins were the declared winners of the election until Sept. 6, when 17 members of the Wilkinson County Democratic Executive Committee voted to toss all the paper ballots after Delaney, Smith and Stewart brought allegations of fraud in the paper ballots.

That decision changed the results of the election, and Allen, Jackson and Hollins filed a contest with the Mississippi Supreme Court to challenge the decision.

Judge Jim Persons, appointed by the high court to oversee the election contest, later found in a court ruling that some actions were taken to delay a ballot examination request by Delaney, Smith and Stewart after the August election.

The court also found that some ballots were missing when candidates initially asked to examine them but were later in the boxes where they belonged when presented to the court.

The election contest dragged out over the course of months, and ended in late February when Persons declared the ballots could not be trusted because it could not be determined who had access to them between August and November, when the contest began.

Two court-appointed special masters, former Judges Barry Gibbs and Barry Ford, will conduct the election.

A special general election will follow, in which independent candidate Calvin Gaines will challenge the winner of the sheriff’s race and independent Donna Smith will challenge the winner of the circuit clerk’s race.