Mississippi has seen too many polling-place changes in the past few years. No fewer than 163 polling-place changes by county election officials have been recorded in Mississippi between the November 2022 midterm election and the August 2023 primaries, a Mississippi Free Press investigation shows.
County election officials have changed the locations of approximately 98 polling places in Mississippi since the 2020 election, with an additional 28 changes since the primaries in June 2022. The Mississippi Free Press previously reported that between November 2020 and November 2022, officials relocated precincts 64 times, closed 19 of them and opened 12 new ones—but without proper and sufficient notice. And on the eve of the August 2023 primaries, Hinds County moved two additional precincts just hours before the polls were set to open.
Such polling-place changes put Mississippi’s democracy at risk.
Frequently changing polling places only confuse voters. In Mississippi, there is a database known as the Statewide Elections Management System, which the Mississippi Secretary of State’s polling place locator relies on to provide voters with accurate information. However, information in the database is usually not up-to-date for all counties or contains inaccurate polling place information for dozens of precincts, leaving voters confused about their polling place information.
Voters are often sent to the wrong polling places, where they spend hours in long queues only to realize their mistakes later—an issue that reportedly affected many voters during the 2020 election. Sometimes, people get confused due to address issues.
For instance, the Mississippi Free Press found that more than 100 precincts in the database either had incomplete, incorrect or no addresses in 2022. Other issues in the data include the improper use of fields, a lack of standardization and data validation, and the absence of redistricting information in the database. Even with the recent July 31, 2023, polling place locator update, the locator updates in real-time as local election officials make any changes to SEMS, but that only works if local election officials update SEMS in a timely manner with accurate polling place information.
Polling-place changes without any prior notice also alienate voters even more, especially marginalized communities of color in Mississippi, where we have the highest population of Black people and the highest level of disenfranchisement in the country. Civil-rights groups said in a letter to officials in October 2022 that polling-place “changes disproportionately impact Black voters.” In 2020, officials made changes to at least 55 precincts between the primaries and the general election, affecting 65,000 voters. During that year’s election, one voter from Lauderdale County reportedly “visited three different polling sites because she had not been notified that her polling place had changed.”
Protect the Vote, Preserve Democracy
Due to Mississippi’s voter-suppression laws (namely voter ID laws), limited absentee balloting and the lack of early voting options and the lack of online voter registration, many Mississippians are not able to cast a ballot on Election Day. Deliberately confusing polling-place changes further compound these issues causing many eligible voters to develop apathy and abandon voting altogether.
While county election officials may have had good intentions in making polling-place changes, the way and manner in which they make these changes are harmful. Usually, a polling place is not permanent. The location may change if the building is no longer available or suitable for use or in the case of redistricting, where precinct boundaries are redrawn. Where this is the case, the local election officials should notify affected voters, but this is not always the case in Mississippi. Instead, voters are left at the mercy of these officials, who fail to update the database and notify them, denying them of necessary information and disenfranchising them.
To correct these anomalies surrounding polling-place changes in the state, Secretary of State Michael Watson should take it upon himself and ensure that county election officials report any polling-place changes to his office, update any changes on the database on time and notify voters of any changes well ahead of time. It is only through these ways that one of his “main objectives” of ensuring that “every qualified voter in the state of Mississippi exercises their right to vote” is actualized since “voter participation is essential to the continuation of our democracy.” That is the only way to save our democracy.
Let us not forget that voter participation is not just a mere act; it is the lifeblood of our democracy. We cannot afford to stand idly by as our fundamental democratic principles are eroded. It is time to demand action from those in authority, urging them to protect the vote and preserve the very essence of our democracy.
The time for complacency is over. We must raise our voices, mobilize our communities and insist on safeguarding our voting rights. Together, we can save democracy and ensure every citizen’s voice is heard. It is up to us to shape a future where equal access to education and the right to vote is not compromised, but upheld as the pillars of a just and inclusive society.
Editor’s Note: To view MFP’s full voter guide for Mississippi’s 2023 primary election, click here. To see all of Mississippi’s voting precinct changes for the 2023 primaries, click here and here.
This MFP Voices essay does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to azia@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
