GONZALES Murphy Painter, a former top law enforcement official in Louisiana who is suing Ascension Parish's president and others over alleged dirty tricks during his 2019 campaign for parish president, is one of 17 people seeking to be that parish's next registrar of voters.

Longtime Ascension Registrar Robert Poche' retired last month after nearly 40 years in a job that plays an important, non-partisan role in ensuring the integrity of the elections and offers a virtual lifetime appointment with lucrative pay.

Others seeking the job include Joanne Capace Reed, a former state director of voter registration who is chief deputy for East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters Steve Raborn; Shanie Bourg, elections operations administrator for the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office and former election operations manager; and Elizabeth Williams, a former Ascension chief deputy registrar of voters who left the office in 2009 after more than 35 years, their resumes say.

Painter has named Parish President Clint Cointment in his lawsuit, but it is the Parish Council, not the president, who makes the next appointment for registrar.

Cointment and other defendants in the suit have denied any role in an alleged conspiracy to damage Painter's election chances in 2019. Painter wasn't immediately available for comment Sunday.

Late last week, the Parish Council agreed on an interview and a ranking and voting process.

They decided to give each candidate 15 minutes to give an opening statement and answer three questions in an initial round of interviews that will be held in public before the entire council. Three finalists will given an additional five minutes to speak, then the council will pick its appointee.

Teri Casso, the council chairwoman, said the council has yet to decide when those interviews will happen but said she believes the interviews and voting will likely happen over two or three days. Due to scheduling conflicts, those interviews probably won't happen until next month, though the dates were still to be determined.

Casso said the application process has drawn "severalvery eligible candidates."

While registrar's offices don't have a role in the direct vote count that is left to parish clerks of court they register the people who do vote and ensure what parish and precinct they live in and, thus, in what elections they are eligible to cast ballots.

Registrar's offices also distribute and receive mail-in ballots and, in Ascension, offer some of the locations for in-person, early voting. The registrar of voters is also one of five members of the parish Board of Election Supervisors, which oversees election preparations, counts mail-in votes and certifies elections in Ascension. The registrar must be a registered voter in the parish.

In Ascension, the registrar's office has seven budgeted positions. In that parish and elsewhere, it can be a low-key job unless election-time passions bring the office's responsibilities to forefront.

In August, for example, voter registration records for two candidates for Donaldsonville City Council played an important role in election challenges ahead of fall elections. In court hearings, Poche', the now retired registrar, testified about the candidates' registrations and voting records. One candidate was allowed to stay in the race and another was not, in part, based on their registrations and voting history.

Perhaps more notably, the registrar's office in East Baton Rouge was tasked with verifying whether the supporters of the St. George incorporation movement had obtained enough signatures from registered voters to put their measure on the ballot.

The office determined movement came up 71 signatures short in 2015, but had surpassed the threshold in 2019. Voters later approved forming the new city. Reed was working for Raborn's office during the second count.

The opening has also drawn applicants with less direct experience in elections but with management or legal careers. They include Barbara Duhe, a retired city of Gonzales manager; Paul Gibson, a retired human resources and student support services director for St. Charles Parish schools; Isaac Jackson, a retired general counsel for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources; and Leroy Laiche, a Prairieville lawyer and former justice of the peace in Ascension who was forced from the office in 2016 for judicial misconduct.

In an interview Sunday, Casso avoided discussing any candidate by name. In public discussions, other council members have done the same. But some top officials in Ascension have already made their views known.

Clerk of Court Bridget Hanna, who is the parish's elections chief and would work closely with a future registrar, said she has told anyone who has asked her, including some other applicants who have called her, that she is recommending Bourg.

Hanna, who has worked in the clerk's office for more 37 years and as clerk for six, said she has worked with Bourg for many years. She called her the most qualified of all the applicants, saying she wrote Secretary of State materials that parish clerks and registrars use for elections.

"I know the integrity that she has. I know that she can walk into that office on day one, take over that office, and bring it where it needs to be," Hanna said.

Reed, the deputy registrar in East Baton Rouge, has amassed her own recommendations. Her application includes those from nearly a dozen other parish registrars, including Raborn, and from Bill Blair, the state Legislature's director of demographic services and an important figure in redistricting.

Others who have applied for the job are Paphine Bajoie, a Baton Rouge 1st City Court clerk; Laura Baragona, a retired Ascension schools paraprofessional; Melody Christy, administrative assistant to Louisiana 1st Circuit Appeals Judge Guy Holdridge and a former Ascension deputy clerk of court; and Michael Heath, a facilities manager for River Parishes Community College and longtime local elections commissioner, resumes say.

Additional candidates are Monica Jackson, an assistant chief tax collector in the Ascension sheriff's office; Debra Larks, a postal supervisor and former business owner; Brady Moran, an IT analyst; Charla LeMaire Moran, an accountant and Ascension school office system specialist; and Rhonda Washington-Dunbar, a retired Ascension schools librarian who briefly was office manager for local Judge Alvin Turner Jr., resumes say.

This story was changed 2:45 p.m. Monday, Feb. 8, 2021, to correct the current and prior jobs of Shanie Bourg, an applicant for the Ascension registrar of voters.

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17 vie to be Ascension registrar of voters, including Painter and state election officials - The Advocate