NAACP calls for better machines at the polls

Harrell Carter said his office at the Jackson-Madison County Chapter of the NAACP has heard multiple complaints about the voting procedure at Madison County's early voting location.

Carter called a press conference in the parking lot of early voting as voting began during its delayed time on Tuesday at 11 a.m.

"We at the NAACP appreciate our poll workers and those helping facilitate the voting process," Carter said. "But we've been hearing about issues with the voting machines in Shelby, Davidson and other counties, and now we're getting complaints about the machines here in Madison County."

The complaints about the machines in Jackson are the touch screens are highlighting candidates other than the ones the voters wanted to vote for.

"There are multiple ways to get the voting done with these machines," Carter said. "But there have been failures."

Carter didn't necessarily place the blame for those failures on the machines themselves, but he did tell a personal story of having to adjust his own actions when he voted.

"They supply a stylus to vote with that's supposed to work with the touch screen," Carter said. "But when I voted, mine didn't work, and I had to use my finger, and sometimes that's not reliable if the options are too narrow on the screen."

Carter stopped short of saying the machines themselves are faulty, but he did say poll workers could do a better job of explaining to voters how the machines work, particularly on the back end of the voting process.

"The good thing is that we have the ability to check our votes before we finally hit the button that casts them," Carter said. "But I don't think a lot of voters realize that. We can print our ballot off and see who it says we're going to vote for before we hit the button that casts our ballot.

"If the workers could do a better job explaining that, because it's ultimately up to me to make sure my vote is correct. And it's on each voter to make sure his or her vote is correct. But I think the process could be easier and less liable for user error when the user has no idea they made an error."

Election Administrator Lori Lott was invited by Carter to be a part of the press conference, but she declined because of the number of voters waiting in line at the time voting hours opened on Tuesday.

She did say the machines have been tested over and over at the company level and again gone through hours and hours of testing with thousands of ballots here in Jackson since their delivery ahead of each election.

"We haven't had a problem yet, not with one single machine," Lott said. "And it is up to the voter to check their work.

"You've got to be 18 to vote in this country, and that's old enough to take a minute to check your ballot and make sure your vote is recorded correctly. Because we do want everyone's vote to be recorded correctly, but part of that responsibility is on the voter too to make sure it's correct before they cast it."

Going into Tuesday morning, a total of 22,315 votes had been cast in Madison County since early voting began on Oct. 16. That's already a 35 percent voter turnout with three days of early voting remaining along with Election Day on Nov. 5.

Madison County had a 69 percent voter tournament in 2020 and 63 percent in 2016.

Carter also called for multiple early voting sites be used, citing the incident that happened Oct. 18 when a car briefly ran out of control, nearly hit two people and ran over voting advocate Trey Cleek's foot, breaking multiple bones and dislocating his ankle.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news