After hearing from about 50 frustrated voters for more than an hour on Tuesday morning, the Hinds County Election Commission agreed to meet publicly with a coalition of civil rights groups to explain why the county ran out of ballots during November’s statewide general election.
The five-member commission, all of whom are elected Democrats, committed to conduct a public meeting on Dec. 18 at 1 p.m. in Jackson to answer questions about how widespread election problems occurred in the state’s most populous county.
“We did make a mistake,” Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Robinson Horton said on Tuesday about the Election Day issues.
During Mississippi’s Nov. 7 general election, several Hinds County voting precincts ran out of ballots throughout the day. The county is majority Black and is a Democratic Party stronghold.
People waited in line for hours to vote on Nov. 7 as local officials attempted to replenish ballots and deliver them to polling places. It’s unclear how many people left without voting or decided not to travel to polling precincts because of the confusion from the shortages.
READ MORE: Hinds County ballot shortages cause legal mess on Election Day
Mississippi is a “bottom-up” state when it comes to election administration, and state law dictates that county election commissioners are responsible for distributing enough ballots to polling precincts.
Several voters and former county office candidates thanked Robinson for her apology, but believed it was not enough. Instead, they demanded the board outline concrete steps to ensure the ballot shortage issues do not occur in future elections.
“Every week we don’t communicate transparently and set a higher standard for ourselves as a community, we risk losing more and more people to the belief that their vote does not matter,” said Larnee Satchell, a voting rights field coordinator for the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. “But it does matter, and as representatives of Hinds County, it is your responsibility to make sure that they matter and that they are amplified.”
While statewide officials have already certified the results of the November 7 election, Hinds County must conduct an election on November 5, 2024, for a U.S. Senate and the presidential election, which typically attract a large number of voters.
Monica Taylor, a Clinton resident, told the commission that her grandfather participated in the civil rights movement to help secure voting rights for all Mississippians. Given Mississippi’s history of racial violence and voter intimidation, Taylor urged the commissioners to urgently prepare for next year’s election.
“My grandfather fought too hard to give all of us that right,” Taylor said. “All of us. And I will not let go. I need answers, and I need to know that this will not happen again.”
READ MORE: Judge extends Hinds County precinct hours after numerous ballot problems
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