Courthouse prepares for election day

By Adam Koob (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Friday, October 3, 2008

NATCHEZ — On a quick walk through the Adams County Courthouse, the hustle and bustle in preparation for Election Day isn’t easily noticeable.

But behind the scenes, local officials charged with overseeing the election are moving into high gear,

“We’re getting ready,” Eddie Walker said.

Walker, the Adams County circuit clerk, and Elections Commissioner Larry Gardner both said this is the busiest time of the year for their offices.

Saturday marks exactly one month until the Nov. 4 presidential election, and both men said between now and then there’s a great deal of work to be done.

“It’s going to be very busy around here for a while,” Walker said.

Adding to the work, the clerk’s office will be open this Saturday from 8 a.m. until 12 p.m. to register new voters.

Voters who have not registered to vote by Saturday will not be eligible to vote in the 2008 presidential election.

And it doesn’t take much to register.

Since Mississippi has no voter identification requirements, eligible voters need little more than to show up at the clerk’s office to register.

In preparation for the election, Walker said his office has been registering lots of new voters.

Walker estimated 75-100 new voters registered on Thursday alone.

But registration is only half of what Walker’s office is currently handling.

His office is also in charge of absentee voting.

Since September, when absentee voting began, Walker said his office has sent out approximately 400 absentee ballots.

“And that keeps growing by the day,” he said.

And just across the hall from Walker’s office, Gardner is expecting to begin his election preparations today.

Gardner said the disk containing all the ballot information needed for the election is expected to arrive at his office today.

That disk will ultimately be loaded to all the voting machines to allow voters to cast their ballots.

After that, Gardner will start the logistics and analysis process, which verifies all the equipment to be used in the election is working correctly.

Gardner said that process can take a full week.

“We’ll be testing every machine,” he said. “We test everything.”

Gardner said having each machine in working order and each poll worker properly trained is always critical, but it’s especially important this year.

“They’re projecting a very high turnout this year,” he said. “We’ll be ready.”