Election Commission fields questions about law, poll workers

The Madison County Election Commission met on Wednesday, July 17, with an agenda of typical business items, but public comments, the acceptance of the minutes from the previous meeting and questions about poll workers caused a number of tense moments in the meeting.

Sabrina Parker, who writes a column for The Post, was there to speak during public comments and had questions about the law to post the TCA code prohibiting crossover voting during primaries.

She said when she voted early on Friday, July 12, that a number of people she was in line with – from both parties – had an issue with the code being posted on a ballot application because some people were intimidated by it and felt it was a minor case of voter suppression.

She also had an issue with the wording on a banner at the entrance asking to have ID ready because a member of her family voting for the first time initially thought her voter registration card was necessary to vote.

Lori Lott, the administrator of elections, and the commissioners said the posting of the TCA Code is required by law.

When the commissioners read through the minutes from the previous meeting in May, Commissioner Lovette Brooks had an issue with the wording of an item from the last meeting. She said she had a problem with the Commission shouldn’t have approved the posting of the law because it’s not the Commission’s job to police what people do when they come in to vote as long as they’re coming in to vote.

Chairman Mike Bledsoe told Brooks that she was the one that seconded the motion in question, to which she said she didn’t.

There was back-and-forth discussion about what the vote was about, and Brooks said she was against the posting of the law.

At the end of the meeting when they got to “other business” on the agenda, Commissioner Wendy Trice-Martin said she’d brought a couple of items up already in a phone call with Lott but wanted to address it with the full commission.

She said that multiple people had told her that they’d called the commission’s offices and been met with rude customer service in the phone calls.

Apparently Lott had asked in the call for specific names, but Trice-Martin hadn’t gotten them, but she said she would if it came up again.

The conversation then progressed to poll workers. Trice-Martin wanted to know how many Black poll workers there are throughout the county’s precincts. Lott said she didn’t have an answer for that because she’s focused on getting Republicans and Democrats at each precinct and not thinking about ethnicity groups.

“Jackson is a diverse place with Blacks and Hispanics, and I think when people go vote or come here to the Election Commission offices, the staff needs to look like the city,” Trice-Martin said. “So I hope you’ll try to get more diversity in poll workers.”

Lott said after the meeting the county apparently has the most Black poll workers it’s ever had. She wasn’t sure about any Hispanic workers, but she’d be glad to bring any on if any signed up for it.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news