Hinds County Democratic Party officials say they’ll do their best to wrap up absentee and affidavit ballot counts today, giving answers to several candidates whose races are up in the air. “We are trying to conclude this. I’m hoping we can conclude a lot of things Friday,” Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee Chairman Claude McInnis said Thursday night.
Meanwhile, in Madison County, Republicans continued to count ballots into the night Thursday. The results could determine the outcome of at least three GOP primary races. In one of the pending Hinds County races, a final count and certification of votes will show whether incumbent Sheriff Malcolm McMillin makes it into a runoff with Democrat Tyrone Lewis, former Jackson Police deputy chief.
… A breakdown for the affidavit ballots wasn’t yet available. Both McMillin and McInnis said the remaining absentee ballots should be counted today.
Not just those ballots, but paper ballots cast at the Wynndale precinct in Terry were being counted. Because of voting machine malfunctions and other snafus, 613 paper ballots were cast at that District 5 precinct, said Hinds County Republican Executive Committee Chairman Pete Perry.
Ballots from that precinct didn’t include either party’s governor or lieutenant governor candidates. That precinct’s problems were joined by widespread snafus across Hinds County, from poll workers failing to show up to machines malfunctioning.
“At Wynndale, there were catastrophic failures” that likely led to many not getting the chance to cast a ballot, Andrew McMillin said. “We beat our opponent pretty handily there before.”
That precinct has about 2,900 registered voters, he said.
McInnis downplayed the problems and said it’s his hope that most people who wanted to vote got the chance. “You don’t want anyone not to be able to vote, so anyone who believes in voting would be concerned about it,” he said. “They didn’t operate a significant amount of time where you could not cast ballots. To my knowledge, we kept sending paper ballots out.”
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