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Eden Villalovas, Breaking News Reporter


NextImg:Mississippi Republican Party files suit against court who kept polls open late in Hinds County

The Mississippi Republican Party filed a lawsuit against the Hinds County Chancery Court over an Election Day order to extend the closing time of several in-person polls.

The state’s GOP filed a petition on Tuesday to dispute the court’s decision to extend voting hours in Hinds County during the Nov. 7 general election.

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The petition is not challenging the ballots from election night, but seeks to clarify that the extension violated state law and the court lacked jurisdiction to make such an order.

In Hinds County, the state's most populous and a predominantly black area, nine voting precincts ran out of ballots on Election Day, causing two-hour wait times. As voting officials scrambled to deal with the ballot shortage, the Mississippi Democratic Party and a nonpartisan group, Mississippi Votes, filed two separate lawsuits to try to give people more time to vote.

In the Democratic lawsuit, a chancery court judge ruled that certain polling places could stay open one extra hour, changing the closing time from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. CST. In the lawsuit filed by the nonpartisan group, a specially appointed judge ruled the polling places needed to remain open until all voters who were in line at 7 p.m. had the opportunity to cast a ballot. State law already required polls to stay open until the voters who were in line at the time of poll closures had a chance to vote.

The GOP said the chancery court’s order “lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter it and it was entered in contravention to Mississippi's election laws.” Furthermore, the GOP said the chancery court did not inform the party of their decision and that they found out about it through social media.

“Given the conflicting orders from the Chancery Court and the Special Judge appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court, there was confusion in Hinds County on election night as to the proper time for polls to close,” the 22-page document to the Mississippi Supreme Court reads.

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The petition cites a Mississippi law that appears to give the Supreme Court sole discretion to appoint judges to hear Election Day conflicts.

“The Supreme Court shall make judges available to hear disputes in the county in which the disputes occur, but no judge shall hear disputes in the district, subdistrict or county in which he was elected nor shall any judge hear any dispute in which any potential conflict may arise,” the law says.