Pearl turnout reported low; problems mar voting in Jackson's Precinct 36

By Cathy Hayden    The Clarion-Ledger   03 May 2005

Polls opened at 7 a.m. today across the state as Mississippians voted in primaries to choose party nominees for mayor, aldermen and city council members.

Some Pearl voters in Country Place subdivision were confused about where they were supposed to vote. That area is split between two precincts, and some were incorrectly trying to vote at Skyway Hills, said Teresa Rooks, chairwoman of Pearl's Republican Municipal Executive Committee.

There was also concern because two candidates, Wayne Wicker and Melinda DePoyster, were originally listed as independents but were not. "One of the candidates had to call to see if he was on the ballot because The Clarion-Ledger listed him as an independent. We have no independents running," Rooks said. "They're afraid they may have lower turnout because of that."

Turnout in Pearl, in general, was low. "At 9:25 a.m. we had 101 voters (at one precinct in District 1) that had a four-way race. It's real low, especially for a four-way race," Rooks said.

Things started smoothly at 7 a.m. at Jackson's Ward 1 Precinct 36 at McLeod Elementary, but a few minutes after voting started touch-screen machines started going down. Within minutes all four were down.

The problem, school officials said later, was a bank of electrical outlets needed to be turned on with a switch. The voting machines were operating on battery power, and the machines went down as the batteries ran down.

A similar problem occurred in a handful of other Jackson precincts, with power strips not being turned on, said Hinds County Elections Commissioner Marilyn Avery."It was not anything of any magnitude," she said.

But in the meantime at McLeod, technicians moved the four machines to another wall and plugged them in there, bringing all the machines back to life.

While the machines were down, for about 35 minutes, about seven people opted to vote by paper ballot instead of coming back later in the day, said precinct manager Caroline Sanders.

She said about 10 people chose to wait out the repairs and were able to vote electronically.

Voting at McLeod in northeast Jackson was steady, but not crowded, at about 9 a.m.

Before they left, technicians checked the machines to ensure no votes had been lost due to electrical problems. They obtained a paper report from the machine just to be safe, Sanders said.

State testing was in full swing at McLeod during the voting, which is taking place in the school auditorium in front of the Westbrook Road school off Old Canton Road.

"The principal let us know," Sanders said. "There has been no conflict whatsoever. The doors that need to be closed (between the auditorium and classrooms) have been closed."

Principal Shelah Reeves said as soon as the school was told voting would occur on the first day of state testing, "we planned it out. We secured entrances. We put up signs in the back and instructed students that they would be here."

Across Mississippi, hotly contested primaries include the mayoral races in Jackson, Vicksburg, Tupelo, Meridian, Starkville and Gulfport.

In Jackson, incumbent two-term Mayor Harvey Johnson faces former television executive and Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics director Frank Melton and a lesser-known candidate, Annell Smith, in the Democratic primary.

For the first time, Jackson is using touch-screen electronic machines for municipal elections. Voters in Jackson have used the machines before for state and county races.