Clint Lowery left his job around 4 p.m. in Alabama to ensure he would have enough time to return home to Harrison County, Mississippi, to vote before the polls closed.
The evening before, he had consulted the Secretary of State’s website to find out his voting location. He also checked his voter registration status.
When he arrived at the St. Martin Community Center, Lowery waited in line for hours before getting inside, where he described about 100 people snaking through the building. Then Lowery, a registered voter in Mississippi for five years, was told he was not on the precinct’s voter roll.
“It kind of blew my mind,” Lowery said. “And a few people I was in line with to get the affidavit, they felt the same way. They were all registered to vote there. A guy next to me said he’s been voting there for 30 years.”
Lowery said the last time he checked online today, his vote was still marked as unprocessed.
Thousands of Mississippians like Lowery — whose votes could decide a crucial U.S. Senate race, in which Democrat Scott Colom holds a slim lead over Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) — are still waiting for their ballots to be counted. This is due to the Republican secretary of state’s contract with Experian, a global credit reporting agency whose data has been described as riddled with errors, which placed thousands of voters in “inactive” status in the months leading up to the general election.
In populous DeSoto County, more than 15,000 people were kicked out of being active voters between the primary and general elections, according to a Mississippi Today analysis with state data.
Other counties with high rates of inactive voters include Jackson with 14,063 and Harrison, where Lowery votes, with 28,921. For many of those voters who went to the polls Tuesday, it came as a shock.
Lowery said that in all the states he has lived and voted in, he has never had to cast a provisional ballot. He heard from others he spoke with, during the more than three hours he spent waiting to vote, that the snafu had impacted voters all day.
Others took to social media to share similar experiences.
Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) acknowledged the chaos Tuesday, but defended the inactivations as a “cornerstone of election integrity.”
“We are receiving several calls regarding people who are not showing themselves as active voters, so we wanted to share some details,” Watson wrote in a social media post. “Our office obtains data for the entire state and sends it to the counties. Election commissioners receive the information and are responsible for verifying it before updating it. Fortunately, voting by affidavit is used to catch any errors or for those who live in the same county but forgot to update their information.”
Watson concluded that the “few extra minutes” it takes for a voter to cast a provisional ballot “is well worth the electoral integrity added by clearer voter rolls.”
Lowery said he waited in line for his affidavit ballot with dozens of other voters for an hour and 15 minutes. Because Lowery had a valid photo ID with him, that was enough to validate his vote. Voters without a photo ID must verify their identity within five days for their affidavit ballot to be considered.
Technology and elections experts have denounced the state’s deal with Experian as wildly irresponsible.
Thessalia Merivaki, who studies elections at Washington State University, said that while states often partner with outside agencies to help them keep their voter rolls up to date, that presents significant challenges when the data isn’t accurate — as appears to be the case with Experian.
“We have evidence that some of the data is unreliable because eligible voters were inactivated by mistake and then never received the alert in the mail because it was sent to the wrong address, because the data was wrong,” Merivaki told Democracy Docket.
“This is a very close election where literally every vote counts,” Merivaki added. “And my assessment is that these affidavits are really going to make or break who wins this election.”
It’s now up to local election officials who are working around the clock to determine the fate of the controversial Senate seat. Merivaki said canvassing commissions would review all sworn votes to compare them to existing voter files for those deemed “inactive.”
But there probably shouldn’t have been thousands of sworn votes to verify in the first place, Merivaki said. And if officials rely on Experian’s already flawed data to cross-check voter files, errors are almost certain.
“I’m not suggesting that election officials are disenfranchising voters, but if you rely on faulty data, some errors will be made because of the faulty data, which could prevent eligible voters from having their votes counted,” Merivaki said.
Other democracy experts echoed the sentiment, accusing the state of entering into an irresponsible deal.
“Credit bureau data was never intended to be used to maintain voter rolls, and using the wrong data for the wrong purposes can result in serious harm. In this case, Mississippi undermined access to voting, a fundamental right, by inexplicably using data from the data broker Experian to apparently maintain voter rolls,” Sydney Saubestre of the Center for Democracy and Technology said in a statement released Wednesday.
“Now voters must identify and resolve the problem themselves, even if that problem stems from the government’s decision to rely on unsuitable data,” Saubestre added.
Lowery said that while he was happy to finally be able to vote, he worried about his fate as the deciding vote in a race with national consequences. He also worries about systems that have left his vote in limbo this midterm season.
“I used to understand how the system worked, right? » Lowery said. “And it looks like it’s broken.”
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