Published: August 18, 2008 08:17 am      

County to hear liquor election requests

The Henderson County Commissioners Court is scheduled to consider two requests to set local option liquor elections at its weekly meeting Tuesday.

Petitions have been circulated in Malakoff and Coffee City calling for the elections to be held in conjunction with the November general election. Henderson County Election Administrator Denise Hernandez said the petitions have been presented to her office and validated.

The Malakoff petition was originated by a group called Citizens for Economic Growth. Proponents were required to get signatures from 35 percent of the registered voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election. State law allows 60 days for the petitioner to garner the required number of signatures.

Two questions will appear on the Malakoff ballot:

• For/Against: “The legal sale of beer and wine for off-premise consumption only.”

• For/Against: “The legal sale of mixed beverages in restaurants by food and beverage certificate holders only.”

Hernandez said the Coffee City petition was presented by a father and daughter who want to legalize the sale of mixed drinks in restaurants by certificate holders within the city limits.

The option adds to an already busy slate of decisions to made by voters in the county.

“I have the four local options, Cross Roads has their school board election and Malakoff has an economic growth sales tax election,” Hernandez.

The county has a limited number of voting machines for the November election, Hernandez said, but the computers have the capability of handling multiple votes.

“It’s all programming that’s done through Hart Intercivic. The most difficult thing is when the clerks validate you to vote they have to look in the city books first to be sure you’re eligible to vote in that political subdivision,” Hernandez said.

The county contracts with Hart for programming voting machines, preparing the counting equipment and other election related functions.

That could be especially tricky in the local option election for voting box 4CC which is near, but not within, the city limits of Coffee City. If the election in 4CC passes, it would become the only wet part of the county not located in a municipality.