RIDGELAND, Miss. ( WJTV ) – Laypersons and clergy within the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi gathered over the weekend for the historic election of its next bishop.
After four rounds of voting on Saturday, the Rev. Dorothy Sanders Wells received a majority of votes from lay delegates and over two-thirds of the vote from the church’s clergy. The bishop-elect is the first African American and woman elected in Mississippi’s diocese.
The lay delegates and clergy began voting on Saturday morning for their eleventh bishop at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Upper School in Ridgeland. To be elected bishop, a candidate needed a majority of votes from the clergy and lay members present.
For the first ballot, the voting process was temporarily suspended. More eligible voters were in attendance than anticipated. As a result, the margin for winning the election was raised slightly for subsequent ballots.
The second ballot clearly showed that Wells was the favorite among both voting blocks. She garnered a majority of votes from clergy in the third round of voting, and both clergy and lay delegates in the fourth round.