Temple Mayor Rick Ford took the oath of office this week for his second term, but Lester Harmon is continuing his fight for a new election by filing for an appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.

Ford seemingly defeated Harmon by three votes on Nov. 3, which was later verified by a recount. Harmon, who served as mayor before being defeated by Ford in 2005, challenged the election in Carroll County Superior Court, claiming that it should be thrown out. Citing votes allegedly cast by unqualified voters, Harmon petitioned the court for a new election to be held.

Harmon’s challenge was dismissed on a technicality in December by Superior Court Judge Richard Sutton before the case was heard. Sutton ruled in favor of Ford’s attorney, David Mecklin, and the attorney for Elections Supervisor Patti Brown-Traylor and the Carroll County Board of Elections, Nathan Lee, that a special summons as required by a 2006 appellate court decisions — Swain vs. Thompson — was never served.

“I think it was a correct statement of what the law is and we’re confident of the appeal of it,” Mecklin said this week.

Though no briefs relating to the appeal have yet been filed, Harmon reiterated Wednesday the argument they made to Sutton that the judge had the discretion to hear the case regardless of the technicality, or, at the very least, to allow the error of improper notice of challenge to be corrected. He also said the deadline to file a motion for dismissal by his opponents had passed before the date of the hearing.

“The judge, in fact, said it was the clerk of court’s fault, but he wasn’t going to hold him responsible,” Harmon said. “Our lawyer stated that if, in fact, (the judge) was going to get hung up on a technicality, then state law gives him the ability to allow us to respond to this technicality. Throughout this process, all of our times seem to expire but none of their time, and it’s just sickening that this goes on in our government, our county and our country.”

Ford said it is the taxpayers who are the ultimate losers as Harmon continues to challenge the outcome.

“I’m disappointed that this is dragging on and it’s not over with yet,” he said. “I feel like the taxpayers of Temple are getting shortchanged through this whole process because to date they have spent $8,000 in legal fees and attorney’s expenses that the city did not have budgeted, which doesn’t include legal expenses for the hearing, the added cost to represent the city on this appeal and the associated legal expenses incurred by Patti Brown and the Board of Elections that the city must pay due to our intergovernmental agreement with them to conduct our elections.”

Ford added that personally he has thus far paid more than $2,000 in attorney’s fees.

“Aside from the expense of running a campaign, I have personally incurred costs of my own attorney since I was named as a defendant in the lawsuit,” he said. “Also, I have really not been able to give the office of mayor my due diligence because I’m spending all of my time putting out fires and having to address these issues. Again, I feel like the taxpayers are being shortchanged because I don’t have time to fulfill my duties.”

Harmon claims in his original challenge that the election should be invalidated because “election officials allowed illegal votes to be cast in such numbers as to change or place doubt on the result of the election.” Court documents filed by Harmon allege that on Nov. 3 illegal votes were received at the polls by at least six or more unqualified electors and then counted in the final tally.

“If we can ever get it in front of somebody that is not going to look at it as our side or their side, but just look at the facts, we have the case to win,” Harmon said. “This is rotten to the core. There is no doubt I have won this election and the people of Temple are getting shafted with the way this is being handled by letting other people and outsiders determine who governs the city.”

Ford remains confident that the election will not be ruled invalid if the case is indeed sent back to Superior Court for a hearing.

“I’m hoping that because it’s an election appeal, it can be fast-tracked so we can put this behind us one way or another so we can then move forward with doing the business of the city,” he said. “If we were to lose this appeal and go to a hearing I feel like we have a strong case because our evidence and witnesses haven’t been heard yet either.”