Lowndes County Circuit Clerk Teresa Barksdale was not surprised by the large volume of new voter registrations ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
“It’s always like that in a presidential election year,” Barksdale said.
The last day for citizens to register to be eligible to vote in the election was Monday. As of Tuesday, 1,681 new voters were added to the poll book in the county, which Barksdale said was probably higher than the new voter registration that preceded the 2016.
How much higher?
“Let me run the program and see,” she said.
A couple of minutes later, Barksdale had that information. In 2016, Lowndes County added 796 new voters before the Nov. 8 election.
“So this year we had more than twice the number of new voter registrations,” she said. “That does surprise me.”
Barksdale attributed the surge in new voters to heightened interest in the presidential candidates for the main parties, as well as better media campaigns designed to inform citizens about voter registration and more grassroots voter registration campaigns.
“What this tells me is that there is going to be a very big turnout for the election and probably in absentee voting, too,” Barksdale said. “Voter registration is always a pretty good indicator.”
It’s much the same throughout the Golden Triangle.
“Absolutely, registrations are up,” said Sheryl Elmore, deputy circuit clerk in Oktibbeha County. “Monday alone, we had 315 people register to vote. That’s very high.”
Circuit Clerk Tony Rook said his office is still processing registrations, but estimated the number of new registrations will be in the 1,500 range.
Clay County Circuit Clerk Kim Brown Hood said there had been 414 new registrations since June.
“We probably had 25 to 30 just on Monday,” she said. “That’s a big number for us.”
Now that the voter registration deadline has passed, the message from the circuit clerks to voters is to make sure you know your polling place.
“That’s the biggest problem we have on election day,” Barksdale said. “People move and wind up going to the wrong polling place and wind up having to vote with a provisional ballot. We have a lot of time left between now and Nov. 3, so it’s a good idea to check to make sure you know where you are supposed to vote.”
Voters can call their circuit clerk’s office to verify their polling location.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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