Elections officials will be delivering voting machines to polling places today as Tuesday’s general election nears.
“The voter turnout will be large,” Ed-ward Course, chairman of the Leflore County Election Commission, said. “We just have to be able to put out the fires when they occur. Always, something is going to happen.”
Course said over the weekend that “everything’s rolling the way it’s supposed to” and that they were positioned to distribute electronic voting machines today.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. If voters have problems on Election Day, they can text “MSvote” to 57711 to receive assistance from the secretary of state’s office.
Course said he always expects a large turnout when there are contested local races. That presents challenges, he said. There are a dozen such races in Leflore County, including circuit clerk and sheriff, plus statewide contests.
The governor’s race pits Republican Phil Bryant, the current lieutenant governor, against Democrat Johnny DuPree, mayor of Hattiesburg. Incumbent Haley Barbour, a Republican, is term-limited.
A mock election held at 275 Mississippi public, private and parochial schools showed Bryant as the winner with 62 percent of the votes. The tightest race was for attorney general, in which Republican Steve Simpson defeated incumbent Democrat Jim Hood by 2 percentage points.
Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said the student mock elections have historically “come extremely close to gauging the actual election results.”
Hosemann also announced recently that counties will begin receiving some additional funding for elections in 2013 through a bill passed last year.
“In 2013, federal funding will no longer be available to counties to assist with elections. The funding counties will receive under this piece of legislation will enable them to prepare for that loss in revenue,” he said in a statement.
Revenue collected from annual report fees from out-of-state limited liability corporations funds the program.
Money is distributed based on population. Leflore County will get $6,537; Carroll County is set to receive $2,143.
