Mississippi’s Most Populous County Runs Out of Ballots on Election Night

Nine precincts in Mississippi’s most populous county ran out of ballots early on Election Day—forcing a voting rights’ group to file an emergency petition to keep some of the polls open an extra hour, which a judge approved. The Election Day disaster occurred in Hinds County, which is home to 220,000 people, the state’s capital, and is Mississippi’s most Democratic county. Videos circulated showing panicked poll workers rushing to print new ballots. While the ordeal is a worst-case scenario for elections officials, a cited caused of the issue is a positive one for Mississippi—the ballot shortage, according to the county’s election commissioners, was caused by a surge in voter turnout—an otherwise welcome sign in Mississippi, which is historically the fifth-worst state for voter turnout. Election officials aren’t seeing the issue through such rose-colored glasses, however, especially with a gubernatorial race at stake. “It is so disheartening and frustrating for our Hinds County Election Commission to drop the ball in this manner,” said Kenneth Wayne Jones, the county’s elections commissioner.