Mississippi Votes

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Well, not all of Mississippi, just the part that votes at Precinct 302 in Tupelo, Mississippi. Our polling place happens to be a local Baptist church. When we arrived about 7:30 AM, the parking lot was jammed with cars. We found a parking spot and went to the church gym, which for today has been transformed into a polling place. The first thing you see is one long line leading up to a table where people check in and are given ballots. On either side of that table, you see two other tables, with people sitting behind them but almost no one going to those tables. Then a worker calls out, “H-P in the middle line. A-G to the right. Q-Z to the left.” A few people move but not many. The problem is, the signs above the tables are on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper—with writing so small you can’t read it unless you are two feet away. There is no easy way to figure out which line to join.

So being respectable citizens, we all congregate in the middle line. And even as it moves forward, almost no one registers to our left or right. 

Odd.

Maybe our precinct is an anomaly. Maybe we’ve got all the “H-P” names in Tupelo in our precinct. Maybe the “A-G” folks are more of a lunchtime crowd. 

Once checked in, we are given a paper ballot. It’s the first time I’ve used one of those in almost 30 years. I’m used to the punch card ballots they gave us in Chicago. The instructions tell us to completely fill in the oval using a ballpoint pen. But don’t mark outside the oval or your vote may be discarded. This is hard. It reminds me of drawing class in elementary school, which was never one of my strong subjects. 

One final surprise. There are only six or seven races to vote for. I’m used to those multi-page ballots in Chicago where you voted for page after page of judges and water district commissioners, with so many names you couldn’t possibly know them all so you just flip through, skip most of them, but when you find something like Supervisor of Records for the Water Reclamation Board, if you find a name that reminds you of your older brother, you vote for the guy. 

But here we have so few races that it only takes a minute or so to complete the voting. When I put my ballot in the machine, it was automatically scanned and my vote recorded. 

As we left the gym, the H-P line was still the longest by far.

Meanwhile the parking lot was full with more cars coming in as we drove off.