Mississippi election officials have moved at least 10 precincts ahead of Tuesday’s party primaries for U.S. House, U.S. Senate and presidential candidates, a Mississippi Free Press investigation has found.
The Mississippi Free Press’ latest investigation and an examination of data in the Statewide Election Management System also found missing, incomplete, incorrect or old addresses for 90 precincts across 19 counties. That is a slight decrease from the 92 errors across 21 counties the MFP found ahead of the November 2023 statewide elections. The total number of precincts statewide remains unchanged at 1,748.
Unlike many other states, the State of Mississippi does not provide an up-to-date, comprehensive list of polling places to the public. To identify polling-place changes and problems, the Mississippi Free Press made a public records request to the secretary of state’s office for a copy of a SEMS report in mid-February and received a list dated March 1; the reporters also gathered polling place lists from county election officials, compared them to the information in SEMS and made calls to verify changes and correct discrepancies.
Since 2020, the Mississippi Free Press has repeatedly interrogated SEMS, identifying voting-precinct changes the secretary of state’s office did not know about and attempting to publicly correct errors to provide the public with accurate voting information. This work has prompted voting-rights organizations to urge Secretary of State Michael Watson to make changes; he has repeatedly said it is up to local election officials to keep SEMS updated with accurate polling-place information and that he does not have the authority to enforce accurate reporting.
“The role of the Secretary of State’s office is to assist counties in conducting elections, which includes training election officials, collecting campaign finance and lobbying reports, collecting election returns, providing assistance to local election officials in carrying out their election-related responsibilities and administering the Statewide Election Management System (“SEMS”),” he wrote the voting rights groups in 2022. “… Because the role of my office is limited to the administrative process of housing the SEMS database and the data stored thereon, any rules promulgated by our office would likewise be restricted.”
Polling-Place Changes
Hinds County accounts for at least four of the precincts that moved ahead of Tuesday’s primaries. Hinds County drew national coverage over ballot shortages that affected thousands of voters in several precincts during the November 2023 statewide elections.
The March 12 primary changes for Hinds County do not include the consolidation of two precincts, Precinct 63 and 64 (currently at Davis Temple Church of God and St. James Baptist Church respectively) that the Hinds County Board of Supervisors approved in February. After unsuccessfully attempting to obtain information on those precincts from the Hinds County Board of Supervisors and the Hinds County Circuit Clerk's office, the Hinds County Election Commission confirmed that those precincts will remain unchanged for the primary and the consolidation will not take effect until April 1, 2024.
The following counties each had one precinct move: Attala, Jackson, Lawrence, Pike, Union and George.
Only one of the changes the Mississippi Free Press identified was not listed in the March 1 SEMS report; the SEMS report still listed the George County precinct that moved from a city courtroom to a local library as being at the old address. You can see a full list of precinct changes below:
Previous 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; 164 changes between the November 2022 election and the August 2023 primaries; and four changes between the August 2023 primaries and the November 2023 general election.
We cannot guarantee that we uncovered all polling-place changes, however; in our work, we’ve often run into instances where some local election officials were uninformed about changes or were using outdated lists. After we published our August list of voting-precinct changes, Hinds County also changed two voting precincts hours before voters headed to the polls, citing accessibility issues.
Address Errors
In total, the Mississippi Free Press found that 62 voting precincts had incomplete addresses, two had incorrect addresses, 23 were still displaying old addresses and two listed no address at all.
Among the 19 counties where the Mississippi Free Press identified address errors, Jones County in South Mississippi had the most precincts by far with 30 errors identified, followed by Simpson County (13); Oktibbeha County (12); Hinds County (six); Tunica County (five); Bolivar County (four); Perry and Attala counties (three each); Walthall, Scott and Chickasaw counties (two each); and Coahoma, Forrest, George, Humphreys, Madison, Sharkey, Smith and Washington counties (one each).
You can examine the individual precincts where we identified problems in the address field and why in the table below:
We have also made efforts to fill in incomplete or missing address information for other precincts in our full list of statewide precincts, though we have not been able to do so in all instances.
Other data-entry errors exist that we did not count here but which nevertheless can cause issues for voters and for publications like this one that attempt to provide information to the public. For example, some county officials duplicate the “precinct name” in the “polling place” field, which should be used to name the building that hosts the precinct. In some cases, election officials instead place the “polling place” name in the address field, which can cause problems for geographic information systems tools.
Others add directions or other information to the address field (e.g., a Scott County precinct’s address field includes the information “NEXT TO KRACKER STATION” in the address field). While potentially helpful to some voters, this can also cause problems for GIS tools. Such incorrect data entry in the address field has frustrated this publication’s past efforts to create visual maps with pinpoints to show the locations of voting precincts, for example.
You can see a full list of all voting precincts for the March 12, 2024, primaries in the table below.
Voting on March 12
The polls for statewide, regional, legislative and local offices are open in Mississippi from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 12, 2024.
When they arrive at the polls, voters must bring an acceptable form of photo identification, such as a driver’s license, state-issued photo ID, U.S. passport, government employee ID card, student ID from a state university or college, firearms license, tribal ID or a Mississippi Voter Identification Card. Information on how residents can obtain a free voter-identification card from their local circuit clerk’s office is available here.
Voters are eligible to cast a ballot if they registered at least 30 days before the election. More information on voting is available on the Secretary of State’s FAQ section and Voter Information Guide.
Editor’s Note: The Black Voters Matter Fund provided support for the Mississippi Trusted Election Project’s precinct-change research.
