UPDATE: Judge orders four precincts in Hinds County to extend voting to 9 p.m. after ballot issues

November 7, 2023

Associated Press,

A judge in Mississippi’s largest county has extended voting times to 9 p.m. at four voting precincts after they experienced ballot shortages and long lines.

The order from a special judge in Hinds County came after a nonpartisan group, Mississippi Votes, filed a petition to extend voting in the four precincts in some Jackson suburbs.

The four precincts where voting will be allowed until 9 p.m. are Byram City Hall, a United Methodist church in Raymond, and Wildwood Baptist Church and Northside Baptist Church, both in Clinton.

A different judge already had extended voting throughout the county until 8 p.m. in response to the ballot shortages.

The ballot shortages in Hinds County were reported in several Jackson suburbs. Polls in Mississippi were supposed to be open 12 hours, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The problems in Hinds County happened after the county’s poll worker training was delayed by a September breach involving the county’s computer system.

Credell Calhoun, a Hinds County supervisor, said he had heard of at least seven Hinds County precincts that ran out of ballots at some point Tuesday. He said the Hinds County election commissioners underestimated turnout.

“This is way beyond anything we’ve ever seen in the electoral process,” Calhoun said. “As hard as we worked to get the vote out and then you’re going to have stupidity to not have enough ballots.”

Republicans dominate in the conservative state, but Democrats were making an aggressive push for a rare victory in a governor’s race in the Deep South.

Presley voted in his hometown of Nettleton, in the northern part of the state. Reeves voted in downtown Jackson.

Heading into Election Day, Reeves told voters that Mississippi had momentum with job creation, low unemployment and improvements in education. He said liberal, out-of-state donors to Presley’s campaign were trying to change Mississippi.