Mississippi voters report problems amid heavy midterm turnout

By Molly Minta | Originally published by Mississippi Today

This story will be updated as information becomes available.

Mississippi voters reported problems casting ballots across the state Tuesday, from long lines to machine malfunctions, in what appeared to be heavy turnout for a midterm election. 

The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office in a Tuesday afternoon statement said that its elections hotline had seen a high volume of calls and reports of late-opening precincts, voting machines being temporarily down and issues with voters verifying their registration status. 

Polls are open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and election officials were urging voters to be patient.

Jada Barnes, a field director with the nonprofit Mississippi Votes, said its election hotline had seen a flurry of calls Tuesday morning from voters who faced trouble at the polls, including machine malfunctions in DeSoto County and long lines in Hinds County. 

“I know our hotline has really been jumping, for lack of a better word,” she said. 

On the Mississippi Gulf Coast, voters reported hour-long lines at precincts across Jackson County. 

Jackson County election officials issued a short statement on social media, attributing equipment issues at multiple polling places to Jackson County Election Commission’s new voting machines.

Danny Glaskok, the commission’s chairman, said the new electronic poll books confused some of the elderly poll workers at many of the county’s 31 precincts, even though he held training ahead of election day. 

“I said, ‘Where were you when I trained you?’ And they said, ‘We were there, we just didn’t understand how to do it.’ And I said, ‘Well you should’ve told me!’” 

Glaskox said he had to drive to several precincts to show the poll workers how to fully plug in the electronic scanner. At the Ocean Springs Civic Center, Glaskox said a creased ballot got stuck in a machine, and poll workers didn’t know how to get it unstuck. 

“They were intimidated by the machine, to be honest with you,” he said. 

State Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, said he heard from a constituent who felt the crowd at their precinct was exacerbated by a confusing system to cast a ballot. 

“It sounds like a process issue,” he said. “I hate that.” 

In addition to a hotly contested Senate race between Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic challenger Scott Colom, Wiggins said turnout in Jackson County is being driven by competitive judicial elections. 

Shea Dobson, a former mayor of Ocean Springs, said the line was longer than he’s seen for previous midterms at his polling location, the Ryan Youth Center, when he turned out to cast a ballot on his lunch break. He played a card game on his phone and spoke to a woman about traveling to Europe while they waited in line for over an hour. 

Despite the wait, he said spirits remained high. 

“Everybody seemed pretty nice and just ready to do their civic duty,” he said.

At the Ocean Springs Civic Center, Diana Schmied and her husband also waited for about an hour when they went to vote around 9 a.m. A retired attorney, Schmied estimated the line was just as long when they left the precinct. 

Though the civic center historically sees more voters than other precincts in Ocean Springs, Schmied said there were not enough voting machine and ballot scanners to keep the line moving quickly. 

The long wait impacted a man standing in front of her, Schmied said, who told her he had hip replacement surgery a few years ago. 

“By the time we got up to the building, he was in some pain,” she said. 

This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Source: Original Article