Mississippians need and deserve more election information before they go to the polls. That’s what I heard repeatedly from Gulf Coast residents on March 5 when I joined Mississippi Free Press team members and locals for our first-ever Biloxi Solutions Circles event.
People said in the circle that they are frustrated that, when they arrive to vote, they see a bunch of positions they didn’t know would be on it, too many positions with only one option, and too many candidates they’ve never heard about and whose positions and ideas they aren’t familiar with. And when they turn to local news for information on candidates, they either meet paywalls or a barrage of out-of-state stories that have nothing to do with their communities.
Even as a journalist, I’m all too familiar with these experiences. Sometimes, it seems like the only way to find out information about the people on my local ballot is to do the work of calling them, asking them questions, looking at their social media trail and examining their histories myself—you know, reporting. But that’s not realistic for everyone who wants to cast a ballot in their local elections.
Now, our team at the Mississippi Free Press is incredible, and they do amazing work. But we realize we can’t single-handedly solve the problem of the dearth of electoral information in all the state’s municipalities and across all 82 counties in one fell swoop. (Now, if any generous funders out there want to help us set up a bureau in each county, please feel free to contact Kimberly Griffin and Donna Ladd), and we’ll get it done. But what we have sought to do, ever since 2020, is ensure voters in all 82 counties can at least know their polling-place location.
Year after year, we’ve heard people tell us that they took time off work to show up at the polls to cast a ballot and waited in line only to be told their polling place had moved. In some cases, people have waited hours in line before being turned away. Even Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson—our top election official—said that his mother ran into the same issues during the 2023 statewide elections.
Last year, we reported on how Hinds County officials moved two polling places just hours before the August 2023 statewide primaries because the locations were inaccessible to disabled people and not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act—another issue that should’ve been addressed long before primary eve.
Since 2020, we’ve identified hundreds of polling places that moved, opened or closed and provided that information to voters ahead of an election. MFP investigations found 55 voting precinct changes between the 2020 primaries and 2020 general election; 70 polling-place changes between the November 2020 general election and the June 2022 primaries; 28 changes between the June 2022 primaries and the November 2022 general election; and 164 changes between the November 2022 election and the August 2023 primaries.
Those efforts, which Black Voters Matter and the American Press Institute helped fund, have drawn national attention.
In 2022, a coalition of voting-rights groups wrote to Watson urging him to make changes to ensure voters have accurate polling information. Without it, voters will be sent to the wrong site when they use the secretary of state’s online polling place locator tool, they warned.
“The impact to voters is significant, and we are writing to urge you to address this problem immediately to ensure compliance well in advance of the 2022 mid-term elections,” the organizations wrote.
But while Watson has acknowledged problems with the voting system, he has insisted that without the Legislature granting him additional authority, those issues remain up to local election officials across 82 counties to solve. His office can provide training, he said, but cannot force local officials to provide timely and accurate information.
“Mississippi is a bottom-up state, meaning local officials run our elections,” he wrote back.
There has been some movement in the Legislature since the Mississippi Free Press began reporting on voting-precinct problems, however. On March 6, the Mississippi House unanimously passed a bill prohibiting local election officials from moving polling places within 60 days of an election except in cases of “exigent circumstances.” Even then, officials would be required to make repeated efforts to inform voters about the change, the bill says.
“When a polling place closes within sixty (60) days of an election, public notice of the closing shall be posted at city hall, the courthouse, the registrar’s office, the polling place location that closed, and for three (3) consecutive weeks in a newspaper that is circulated in the area,” the House Bill 1156 says.
But that legislation still is not law and will need approval in the Senate before it could go to the governor’s desk for his signature. It also would not solve all the myriad problems with Mississippi’s election system but could prevent last-minute changes like the ones in Hinds County. But it would not solve other problems, like failures of local election officials to ensure their polling places are ADA-compliant ahead of time. It also would not force counties to provide accurate or updated polling-place information—or else leave those fields blank entirely in the state election database.
So now, with Tuesday’s primaries upon us, we’re once again working to provide voters with the information they need to know where to cast their ballots. We’ll have a full list of precincts and any changes published by Monday, March 11. Also, reporter Heather Harrison has published an information guide for the U.S. Senate candidates who are on the ballot and has another one coming on U.S. House candidates, too.
I’d love to encourage you, the people, to help us in our efforts to grow and protect democracy in Mississippi in 2024 and beyond. Please support our work by giving, in any amount you can, to our spring “You the People” campaign.
