DEMOCRACY
Video Shows Mississippi Voting Machine Automatically Switching Votes In GOP Governor Primary Runoff
The Clarion Ledger reported on Tuesday that there have been at least three reports of voting machines in two counties changing voters’ selections in the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary runoff.
At least one of the incidents was captured on video Tuesday morning by a Mississippi voter.
In the video posted by Sally Kate Walker, the voting machine’s touch screen changed the selection from Republican candidate Bill Waller Jr. to his opponent and fellow Republican, Tate Reeves.
As the voter attempted to select Waller’s name over a dozen times on the touch screen, the selection automatically changes to Reeves.
“It is not letting me vote for who I want to vote for,” a person in the video says.
“How can that happen?” someone in the background asks.
According to a comment Walker made under the video, the malfunction happened at the Burgess voting precinct in Oxford.
Clarion Ledger reports:
Two other machines in Calhoun County have also “jumped,” with at least one voter also attempting to vote for Waller but having their ballot automatically changed to Reeves, said Circuit Clerk Carlton Baker.
At the Northeast Calhoun precinct, also known as Chickenbone Baptist Church, a woman complained after “mashing the button” three times to vote for Waller but the machine kept switching her vote to Reeves, Baker said. On her fourth attempt, the machine cast her ballot for Waller. As of 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, a technician was working on the machine.
Then, at the Masonic Hall precinct in Vardaman, another voter complained of the machine “jumping” when they tried to cast their ballot. Baker did not know who that voter was attempting to vote for. That machine was taken out of commission until the technician could arrive, Baker said.
A spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office told the newspaper that the faulty machine is being replaced.
Watch Walker’s video below: