Mississippi local officials say human error and poor training led to election-day chaos

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The county election officials under whose watch ballot shortages hampered voting in Mississippi’s largest county said technical mishaps and insufficient training were to blame for election day chaos in November.

At a meeting with representatives from a coalition of statewide and national civil rights organizations, Hinds County election commissioners said Monday that their mishaps caused several polling locations in Hinds County to run out of ballots. They admitted to sharing the wrong voter data with the company they contracted to print ballots, which directly led to the ballot shortages.

“Complete human error. I hate that the citizens of Hinds County had to experience that,” said Commissioner RaToya Gilmer McGee.

But the commissioners, all Democrats, also pointed to what they said was inadequate guidance from Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican. The commissioners said they had to rely on a training manual written for election officials across the state.

“If there are 82 counties in the state of Mississippi, there are 82 ways to do things. And so there is no streamlining, there are no checks and balances, there are no policies and procedures," Gilmer McGee said.

In Mississippi’s Nov. 7 general election, up to nine voting precincts in Hinds County ran out of ballots. People waited up to two hours to vote as election officials made frantic trips to office supply stores so they could print ballots and deliver them to polling places. Voting groups and political parties filed legal papers that aimed to keep polls open later or prevent them from staying open.

Hinds County is majority Black and a Democratic stronghold. It’s unclear how many people left without voting and the political affiliations of the most affected voters.

When Hinds...