Local election officials in Mississippi have made changes to 138 polling places since the 2024 election, including moving the location for 112 precincts, closing 21 precincts and opening five new precincts. Statewide, there are now 16 fewer precincts than there were two years ago due to consolidations.

The Mississippi Free Press identified the precinct changes by making a public records request to the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office for a copy of the Statewide Elections Management System’s list of polling places.

The reporters made calls and sent emails to circuit clerks and election commissioners across all 82 counties to confirm the information in the SEMS report and to ask whether there were any additional changes that SEMS did not reflect.

Election officials make polling place changes for a variety of reasons.

“Churches sometimes decide they no longer want to serve as polling places” due to the effort involved, DeSoto County Election Commissioner Sissie Ferguson told the Mississippi Free Press, explaining three precincts where the polling place moved from one church to another.

In Smith County, the Summerland precinct temporarily moved to the Beat Barn due to needed repairs.

SEMS Errors Can Send Voters to the Wrong Place

In multiple instances, the Mississippi Free Press found that information listed in SEMS was incorrect, including instances involving incomplete or erroneous addresses. When counties enter incorrect information into SEMS or fail to update outdated information, that can cause problems for voters on Election Day. Addresses and locations for some polling places have been wrong in SEMS across multiple elections, including five polling places in Tunica County.

While the SEMS list of polling places is not public-facing, the state’s My Election Day online polling place locator tool can send voters to the wrong location on election day if the information the tool pulls from SEMS is inaccurate.

State officials are not involved in changing polling places or in keeping SEMS updated. While the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office oversees election administration and provides election worker training, local election officials determine precinct locations and are in charge of keeping SEMS updated with the latest polling place information.

“I do think it’s important for people to know that though we house SEMS, the data that’s put into SEMS comes from our counties, especially when it comes to our poll locations,” Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said in an Oct. 21, 2024, interview with the Mississippi Free Press. “So those are coming directly from the ground on the county level, and those—the county supervisors, the (circuit) clerks—are the ones who decide where those precincts are.”

The secretary emphasized that most local election officials “are really good about” doing their jobs and keeping information up-to-date, but said his office has taken steps to train and work with local election officials to ensure better compliance.

Earlier this year, experts around the country shared solutions for improving Mississippi’s election system, including its SEMS database, and voters in other states shared their experiences with different election systems with the Mississippi Free Press.

New Law Limits Changes Within 60 Days

During the 2025 legislative session, the Mississippi Legislature passed and Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill into law prohibiting county election officials from changing polling places within 60 days of an election except in exigent circumstances. Mississippi House Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, first introduced the legislation in 2024,  after the Mississippi Free Press reported on how Hinds County officials moved two Jackson polling places just hours before voters headed to the polls for that year’s party primaries in 2023.

The new 2025 law prevented Hinds County from changing a polling place earlier this month for non-emergency reasons, which would have been within the 60-day window.

The Mississippi Free Press has been investigating polling place changes in the state since 2020. Previous MFP investigations found 55 polling place 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; four changes between the August 2023 primaries and the November 2023 general election; 10 changes between the November 2023 general election and the March 2024 primary elections; and 54 changes between March 2024 and November 2024; and 12 changes across 18 counties during 2025’s special legislative elections.

You can use the table below to see the full list of polling place changes for the 2026 general election.

If your voting precinct has changed this year but is not in our list, you experience any problems with voting, or you think we’ve made a mistake, please email us at voting@mississippifreepress.org.

Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ Trusted Elections Coverage and read past stories here.

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Award-winning News Editor Ashton Pittman, a native of the South Mississippi Pine Belt, studied journalism and political science at the University of Southern Mississippi. Previously the state reporter at the Jackson Free Press, he drove national headlines and conversations with award-winning reporting about segregation academies. He has won numerous awards, including Outstanding New Journalist in the South, for his work covering immigration raids, abortion battles and even former Gov. Phil Bryant’s unusual work with “The Bad Boys of Brexit" at the Jackson Free Press. In 2021, as a Mississippi Free Press reporter, he was named the Diamond Journalist of the Year for seven southern U.S. states in the Society of Professional Journalists Diamond Awards. A trained photojournalist, Ashton lives in South Mississippi with his husband, William, and their two pit bulls, Dorothy and Dru.

Liam Pittman is a native of Pascagoula, Miss., and has won multiple awards for his investigative data and elections work for the Mississippi Free Press since 2020.

North Mississippi Bureau Reporter Ahmer A. Khan is a graduate of University of Mississippi. He is bringing his combined legal and journalism training directly to communities within the bureau during a critical election cycle.

Capital Bureau Reporter Grace E. Marion is covering the capital city, Jackson, as well as surrounding rural, urban and suburban areas in Hinds County, Madison County and Rankin County. She is a reporter and photojournalist with a passion for narrative writing and investigative reporting. Her work as a journalist has earned her coverage in publications like the Columbia Journalism Review, the Hechinger Report, and the Student Press Law Center. Grace is a member of the Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Grace graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media in 2022 with a degree in print and broadcast journalism, and from the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2024.

Amy Schafer is the Mississippi Free Press' Gulf Coast bureau reporter in partnership with Report for America. A 2026 graduate of Pennsylvania State University's Schreyer Honors College, she holds degrees in advertising/public relations, global and international studies with a concentration in human rights and women's, gender and sexuality studies. Before joining MFP, she served as editor-in-chief of Penn State's student newspaper The Daily Collegian and freelanced for The Washington Post.

Jaylin R. Smith, a Corps member for Report for America, is a multimedia journalist and motivational speaker from Greenwood, Mississippi. After receiving two bachelor’s degrees in communications from her beloved HBCU, Mississippi Valley State University, she continued her education at the University of Mississippi where she received a masters in Journalism and New Media. Over her college career, Jaylin has written articles for the Truist Leadership Institute, Overby Center for Southern Politics and Journalism, and the Hotty Toddy website. She was also chosen as a 2024 TEDx Speaker at the University of Mississippi. Her love for diversity and community have fueled her academic and professional interests, making the Delta Region reporter ideal for her. In her leisure time, Jaylin enjoys singing (very badly), writing poetry, hanging with friends, and being adventurous.

State Reporter Heather Harrison has won more than a dozen awards for her multi-media journalism work. At Mississippi State University, she studied public relations and broadcast journalism, earning her Communication degree in 2023. For three years, Heather worked at The Reflector student newspaper: first as a staff reporter, then as the news editor and finally, as the editor-in-chief. This is where her passion for politics and government reporting began.
Heather started working at the Mississippi Free Press three days after graduation in 2023. She also worked part time for Starkville Daily News after college covering the Board of Aldermen meetings.
In her free time, Heather likes to sit on the porch, read books and listen to Taylor Swift. A native of Hazlehurst, she now lives in Brandon with her wife and their Boston Terrier, Finley, and calico cat, Ravioli.