MS election officials preparing for primaries

Mississippi's election officials are gearing up for our primaries, which are just a week away. After last week's ruling from the Mississippi Supreme Court ordering that Willie Wilson's name be added to the Democratic Primary ballot, the race to reprint new ballots was on.

First, test ballots must be printed and run through all the machines to ensure they're working correctly. Tuesday, those test ballots did not arrive, putting election officials in even more of a crunch.

"When you add one name or you take one name off. If there is a problem with the ballot at all, it creates a issue where you have to retest everything," said Becky Payne. 

The election commission and the Democratic Party has had a lot on their plate over the past week with having to order new ballots.

"We were expecting the test ballots to come in today. They did not. They're supposed to arrive tomorrow, and once they arrive tomorrow, then we can do tests all together," said Payne.

Anna Gines, who is on the Democratic election commission, said in the last 10-plus years she's been with the party, they've never dealt with this. She's positive everything will be worked out by election day. 

"It's not that big of a problem. All we have to do is wait for new ballots to come in and test those, reprogram the memory cards. Once the memory cards are reprogrammed, we take them and do the integrity tests on the computer," said Gines.

The secretary of state's office sent a letter Tuesday saying the new ballots will cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Harrison County Circuit Clerk Connie Ladner said it cost the county $20,000 to reprint.

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