MEMPHIS, July 27, 2026 - Item 31 on Monday's Shelby County Board of Commissioners agenda was a resolution titled the Shelby County Evidence-Based Election Governance Act. Its stated purpose was to promote evidence-based election record preservation, provenance and auditability, and to encourage best practices for transparent election record management consistent with state and federal law.
It was sponsored by Commissioner Erika Sugarmon. It never reached a vote.
What happened
The parliamentarian read the caption and noted that the item does not meet the requirements of the permanent rules and had been sent down from committee without recommendation.
Commissioner Sugarmon moved it. Commissioner Shalai seconded.
Chairwoman Shante K. Avant then asked whether the rules needed to be suspended, and whether legal had reviewed the item.
County Attorney Megan Smith answered that her office had not reviewed the version in the system, but had reviewed a substitute that had been passed out to commissioners.
That meant the version formally before the body was the unreviewed one, so the chairwoman called for a motion to suspend the rules to allow it to be heard.
Commissioner Sugarmon so moved.
> "Is there a second? Is there a second?"
The transcript records silence.
> "Okay. If there for lack of a second, the item will not properly be before us unless there is a second to have it properly before us."
More silence.
> "I'm going to give it another. Okay."
More silence.
> "All right. So, unfortunately, Commissioner Sugarmon, lack of a second, the item is not properly before us for us to act on it."
The commission moved on. Nine commissioners had voted on the item immediately before this one, and nine voted on the item immediately after.
What the resolution was about
At the committee meeting five days earlier, Commissioner Sugarmon described what she was trying to do. She said the resolution establishes a chain of custody for election records. She tied it to problems in the current election cycle, naming the issue with ballots being sent out and a ballot not being correct.
She also told the committee that an attorney from outside Shelby County was reviewing the language and would sign off on it, and that it would return as a substitute at the regular session. It did return as a substitute. The substitute was the version the county attorney had reviewed. It was not the version in the system.
The committee's response at the time was skeptical of the mechanism rather than the problem. Chairwoman Avant said she saw the underlying issue as a competence problem characteristic of county government, and asked how the resolution would fix that. She raised whether there should be consequences for the administrator of elections for failing to meet requirements. Commissioner Sugarmon answered that this would be beyond what commissioners can do.
The committee suspended its rules to hear the item and sent it forward without recommendation.
The reconsideration question
After the failure, and after the commission had taken up its resolution of adjournment, Commissioner Mickell Lowery asked the chair what the process would be to move to reconsider item 31 before the meeting closed.
The parliamentarian advised that because the item failed for lack of a second, anyone who had not made the original motion or the second could bring a reconsideration. Chairwoman Avant said the parliamentarian would confirm that.
A commissioner then raised the sequencing problem: the adjournment resolution was already before the body, and adopting it would end the meeting. The chairwoman answered that if the item is not time sensitive, it can be brought back at a different time, and that the body should not make its life more complicated than it has to be.
No motion to reconsider was made. The commission adjourned 9 to 0.
What happens next
Nothing is scheduled. The resolution is not before the commission, was never voted on, and no motion to reconsider was filed before adjournment. The commission's next meeting is Monday, August 10. Its term ends this summer.
