Voters in Jackson, Mississippi, started calling Catherine Robinson to say they were afraid to walk into the building where their ballots were being counted.
Robinson is a Mississippi organizer and the state co-manager for Black Voters Matter, in the state she is from. On Monday, the police presence around the Hinds County Circuit Clerk’s Office in downtown Jackson grew, and roads nearby were blocked. Some of the people who called her thought it was meant to obstruct the count. Some thought it was meant for them.
“We asked the police to eliminate the presence because voters felt intimidated,” Robinson said.
A coalition gathered outside the courthouse and chanted “Don’t Interrupt Our Vote.” Karla Edwards, deputy director of programs and strategy for the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, named the practical cost of it, in a downtown where parking is already limited, and a lane had been taken away.
What the closures were for came out afterward. Attorney General Todd Blanche was in the city with state and city officials to announce a $64 million federal grant to Jackson to reduce violent crime and strengthen public safety, one of four cities picked for the money. Nobody confirmed at the time that the police presence and the roadblocks had anything to do with the visit, and no city official has explained it since.
“No one has come out and made that statement,” Robinson said.
The timing is what makes this more than a traffic complaint. The Senate race in Mississippi is still being counted, with 97 percent of the vote in and Democrat Scott Colom ahead of Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith by more than 2,500 votes. Mississippi is one of three states with no in-person early voting, so hundreds of thousands of affidavit ballots are in play. Voters had until 5 p.m. Central on November 10 to cure an affidavit ballot or get an absentee ballot in the mail, and counties have to certify their results to the secretary of state by Friday. So the hours a voter most needed to get through that door were hours with the road outside it shut and nobody in city government saying why.
“We’re in a critical state at this time where we’re trying to make sure that nobody feels left behind,” Robinson said. “It is not a time for us to play about the election process and the electoral process.”
