State Sen. Clementa Pinckney, D-Ridgeland, said Monday that the letters he sent to Lawrence Bowers, Jake Rawls and Jack Lee thanking them for their service on the commission were intended to end their tenures.
"I'm sorry (the letters) weren't clear enough," he said. "It does mean they are no longer members of the commission."
The senator had been out of reach for more than a week following the letters' release, leaving commission members to puzzle over the wording, with some people speculating that the dismissals were payback for firing the county's voting director.
The letters were sent a day after the commission decided 6-1 to dismiss Cathy Morgan after six years of election missteps that had brought numerous state investigations, new elections and a 2000 designation by a Harvard University group as having the worst presidential election results in the nation.
Although he disagreed with Morgan's dismissal, Pinckney said the commission's decision had nothing to do with the letters.
"I was trying to clear my desk before I headed out of town," he said. "It happened by coincidence."
Pinckney said the commission's "lapses in judgment" should be weighed beside Morgan's mistakes.
"I find it hard to believe everything was the director's fault," he said.
Replacements for the three commission members have not been selected, but others may be dismissed before new appointments are sent to the governor for approval.
"There will most likely be some more letters," he said. "They have just not been able to get it together."
Following the June 8 primary, the Jasper commission threw out 280 incomplete absentee ballots and issued a complete recount of the county's polls when a review of sign-in logs showed hundreds more votes than actual voters.
Terms for the entire commission ended in March, with the other five sitting commission members expected to serve until they are replaced, reinstated or dismissed, Pinckney said.
Rep. Thayer Rivers, D-Ridgeland, disagreed with at least one of Pinckney's dismissals. The representative said last week that Jake Rawls will be one of two Election Commission appointments he plans to recommend to the governor.
Vice Chairwoman Barbara Pinckney said the commission will interview four applicants for the voting director job this afternoon and she expects the commission to select a director by Wednesday.
"We have some very good candidates," she said, though she would not give the names of the four finalists.