[05/14/01] Voter rolls in Vicksburg and across the state are bloated with names of people no longer eligible to vote, an official with the Elections Division of the Secretary of State’s Office said.

“We think that the majority of the names that need (to be removed) are duplications,” David Blount said. “It is a statewide problem.”

The latest count from the City Clerk’s Office indicates that 17,603 Vicksburg residents are eligible to vote in municipal elections in three weeks. According to the Census 2000 count, 18,911 city residents are 18 or older. The numbers indicate 93 percent of the adult population is registered to vote.

Warren County poll books list 88 percent of the 35,476 adult residents as eligible voters, and state numbers indicate 85 percent of Mississippi’s 2 million adult residents are registered voters.

“We believe that the numbers are greatly inflated due to the voter rolls not being purged,” Blount said. “I think it is much more likely that the census numbers are more accurate than the voter rolls.”

Voter rolls are purged when city and county election officials remove the names of residents who have died, moved or have been convicted of a felony.

In Vicksburg, certified returns indicate that 6,229 of the city’s 17,603 eligible voters cast ballots in May 1 primary elections. In 1997, poll books listed 15,991 registered voters in Vicksburg, and 8,867 ballots were cast in that year’s municipal general election.

City voters will return to the polls June 5 to elect a mayor and two aldermen to four-year terms.

Brenda Hawkins, a volunteer for the Laurence Leyens campaign, said she and other volunteers noted several problems on the voter rolls before the May 1 party primary elections. The biggest, she said, was voters who have moved or are still listed at their old addresses.

“There are serious discrepancies there, and that’s why political parties and candidates send poll watchers to the polls,” Hawkins said. “They are so afraid that someone will try to vote with one of those names.”

During a cursory check of some homes near where Hawkins lives, she noted 14 addresses on poll books where multiple families were listed. Names that she noted included the name of one resident on Lakewood Lane who moved 10 years ago, the names of six voters from two different families at a Lakewood Hills home and the names of three different families at one house on Woodstock Place.

“The biggest problem was all of the people on the same address, which could allow someone from out of town to come in and vote,” Hawkins said.

City Clerk Walter Osborne said the Vicksburg Election Commission has been working to clean up poll books since the registration deadline passed last week. He agreed that a number of names were of people who have moved since the last election, in 1997.

Because the city holds elections every four years, Vicksburg election officials use a list compiled by county election officials of the names of people who should be removed from the poll books.

“It probably is a little high,” Osborne said. “People move, and the last thing they think about is taking their names off the poll books.”

Blount said the continued registration of residents who have moved is also the greatest statewide problem. In an attempt to help solve the problem, the Secretary of State’s Office has set up a statewide voter roll so when a voter moves from one county to another, the name can be removed, but Blount said it is still up to the local election officials.

“We think that the greatest way to prevent fraud is to purge the voter rolls,” Blount said.

On the June 5 ballot, incumbent Mayor Robert Walker, 57, who won the Democratic nomination in the May 1 primary election, will face independents Eva Marie Ford, 63, Leyens, 37, and former mayor Joe Loviza, 61. Walker is seeking his third full term, and Loviza is looking for a second term.

In the North Ward, two-term incumbent Gertrude Young, 45, who defeated three challengers in the Democratic primary, is facing one challenger in the general election, Sylvester Walker, 40.

For the South Ward alderman’s seat, the names of the Republican primary winner, Sidney H. Beauman Jr., 52, and Democratic primary winner, Pam Johnson, 35, will appear on the ballot along with those of independents Vickie Bailey, 33, and Ashlea Mosley, 18.