Barzizza concedes 2018 Germantown mayoral race
About 10 months after a controversial and hotly contested mayoral election, former Germantown alderman John Barzizza conceded the race to Mayor Mike Palazzolo.
A legal complaint Barzizza filed against the Shelby County Election Commission and its administrator in Shelby County Chancery Court in November 2018 was dismissed last week.
Barzizza's attorney, Chris Gilreath, said after conducting a ballot review, he and Barzizza concluded they would not "uncover enough votes improperly counted to invalidate the election."
Gilreath added Barzizza thought it was important to concede to allow the election commission to focus on other elections.
"He did highlight that there were gaps in how election results are reported, and in this case, how absentee voters, especially older voters, could easily have their votes harvested by outside parties," he said in an email. "In this case, we raised concern about that issue, but because the legal case must involve errors by the election commission itself, we were unable to find sufficient proof of an organized effort to harvest votes."
Gilreath said Barzizza was not planning to take further legal action regarding the 2018 mayoral election.
Shelby County Election Commission spokesperson Suzanne Thompson confirmed the complaint had been dismissed and said it had not placed a large burden on the commission due to the relatively small size of the Germantown electorate, compared to Memphis or Shelby County.
Barzizza's original complaint noted 476 of the 543 absentee ballots received by the election commission were tallied. While Barzizza had a seven-vote lead after early and election day voting results were tabulated, Palazzolo received 301 of the allowed absentee votes, winning him the election.
The complaint accused the election commission of inaccurately tallying the vote. Attorneys for the election commission said even if those claims were true, Barzizza would still have lost the race.
Barzizza was granted access to review absentee and provisional ballots this spring.
Corinne S Kennedy
Corinne Kennedy is a reporter for the Commercial Appeal. She can be reached via email at Corinne.kennedy @Commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @Corinneskennedy