Attorney general rejects GOP call for election investigation

Ford, a Democrat who represented the Senate district in Memphis for 31 years, resigned in May following his indictment on federal bribery and extortion charges.

His sister, Ophelia Ford, defeated Republican opponent Terry Roland by a vote of 4,332 to 4,320 in a special election Thursday.

The state GOP asked Attorney General Paul Summers to investigate the election, citing allegations of voting irregularities and improper vote counting. Republicans asked Summers to seize voting machines until a review could be conducted.

Summers responded that state law provides for election challenges without “such extraordinary action as to seize those machines.”

Voting machines must be locked for at least 10 days after any election in case challenges are filed, Summers said in a letter to GOP Chairman Bob Davis.

Summers said state Election Coordinator Brook Thompson and Greg Duckett, chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission, “are taking every possible step to fulfill their duties and to ensure that the statutory process for determining the results of this election is strictly followed.”

Republicans also called on the Tennessee Senate to look into the election. Under the state Constitution, the Senate has the ultimate authority to rule on its membership.

Tennessee Democrats said the GOP should accept that the voters have chosen their next senator.

“Instead of displaying grace in defeat, Terry Roland is making inappropriate and bald-faced threats to bring in a gang of lawyers from Washington … It’s clear that Terry Roland has every intention of trying to tangle up this special election in bogus legal knots,” Bob Tuke, state Democratic Party chairman, said in a statement.

Ophelia Ford could not be reached for comment.

John Ford rarely drew serious challenge for re-election, but with his sister as the Democratic candidate, the GOP gave more support than usual to the Republican in the race.

For the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans hold a slight majority, 17-16, in the Senate, which made a chance at taking the longtime Democratic seat particularly attractive.

As expected, the special election drew only a fraction of registered voters, less than 10 percent.

John Ford resigned after his indictment along with four other current or former state lawmakers also charged with corruption in the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz investigation.

He was first elected to the Senate in 1974, the same year brother Harold Ford Sr. became Tennessee’s first black member of Congress. Harold Ford Sr. retired in 1996 and was replaced by his oldest son, Harold Jr., now a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

The Ford family has long been a power in Memphis politics, with family members also winning election to numerous city and county offices.