Last year’s disastrous ballot shortages inspired 24-year-old Democrat Jermany Gray to run for Hinds County election commissioner for District 3, the South Jackson native said during a press conference about his campaign outside the Hinds County Election Commission on Wednesday.
He said his mother always took him to the polls with her when he was a child, and “the spirit of wanting to vote, the spirit of wanting to be engaged, that was built into me.”
“That last race was my first governor’s race,” Gray said. “I’m grateful that my precinct did not experience issues, but it was very frustrating to hear that other people were not able to cast their votes quickly and efficiently in one of the most important elections in our state’s history.”
Gray, a former poll worker, said he wants to help restore voters’ faith in the system and that he would prioritize voter education outreach and ensuring election commission meetings are streamed online if elected.
Jermal Clark, the current District 3 Election Commissioner, won the seat in 2020 after a runoff.
In an interview with the Mississippi Free Press on Wednesday, Gray said the challenge of running against an incumbent motivates him.
“I’m going to let it motivate me because I think I’m the better person for the position,” he said. “I don’t know if he’s the best fit to help move us forward from where we have been.”
After graduating from Murrah High School, Gray attended Dillard University where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science. He’s currently enrolled in a public policy and public administration master’s program at Jackson State University.
Commissioners Blamed ‘Human Error’ For Ballot Shortages
Election Commissioners are tasked with managing a county’s election operations. They keep and maintain the county’s poll books, hire and train poll workers, and—along with the county circuit clerk—help to maintain voter-registration records.
But after at least nine Hinds County voting precincts ran out of ballots on Election Day on Nov. 7, 2023, voters and voting rights advocates expressed concern and demanded answers from the election commission.
“The events that happened on Election Day are unacceptable,” Amir Badat, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said during a Dec. 7, 2023, press conference in Jackson.
He and other voting-rights advocates pleaded with the commission to sit down for a meeting so that they could better understand what led to the debacle.
The shortages also drew congressional scrutiny.
U.S. House Committee on House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican, sent a letter to all five members of the Hinds County Election Commission demanding answers on Dec. 5, 2023, demanding answers about the shortages.
“Situations like this reported ballot shortage and the distribution of incorrect ballot styles have the potential to damage voter confidence at a time when we can least afford it,” Steil wrote. “As you may know, the Committee is especially concerned with resolving any issues that may lead to the disenfranchisement of voters due to government-created ballot shortages.”
Weeks later, the commission held a public meeting to discuss what happened and what measures the officials planned to take to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
Commissioner hopeful Jermany Gray was among the crowd eager to hear an explanation.
“We took a look and determined on our own that two (ballot) reports were inverted,” then-Hinds County Commissioner for District 2 RaToya Gilmer McGee told a group packed into the election commission office on Dec. 18, 2023.
She explained that the ballot shortage happened because someone at the Hinds County Election Commission office entered incorrect information into their ballot-ordering system. That oversight led to the commission ordering too few ballots to cover the expected number of voters in Hinds County.
“(It was) complete human error,” McGee said. “We hate that the citizens of Hinds County experienced that.”
The commissioners said they wanted additional training on how to handle the elections. Typically, the Election Commission Association of Mississippi trains election commissioners once a year in January for elections and commissioners have access to a training manual.
Still, several commissioners expressed on Dec. 18, 2023, that the training was not substantial enough. “If there’s 82 counties (in Mississippi), there’s 82 ways to do things,” McGee said. “(Hinds County) was not the only county printing ballots on Election Day,” she continued. “Yeah, we learned from it at the citizens’ expense. Yes, it happened. No, we’re not skating over it; we’re trying to move forward.”
‘I Have the Experience, and I’m Ready to Serve’
In the months after the Nov. 7, 2023, ballot shortages, Hinds County Election Commissioners vented their frustration over the criticism they received.
Some said they were not prepared to oversee the March 2024 party primaries after what happened, with WLBT reporting on Feb. 1 that the commission had “opted out” of managing the Republican and Democratic primaries.
But the commission reversed course soon after.
“We are doing everything humanly possible to make sure that that doesn’t happen again. Murphy’s Law happens sometimes, but the only thing I can say is we’re doing everything humanly possible,” Bobbi McClure Graves, the newly elected commissioner of District 2, told WLBT in March.
Although the commissioners did decide to assist with the primaries and the March primaries passed without any major issues, commission hopeful Jermany Gray said in an interview with the Mississippi Free Press on Wednesday, June 5, that the trepidation some commissioners expressed gave him pause.
“With that problem of the ballot shortages and also them saying they didn’t want to help with the primary elections, those issues back-to-back, … I saw an opportunity,” Gray said. “I have the experience and I’m ready to serve.”
He said he thinks a win could inspire younger voters to run for local office.
