Office open Saturday morning for absentee voting

Saturday, March 7, is the last day anyone can cast an absentee ballot in the March 10 presidential preference primaries.

Union County Circuit Clerk Phyllis Stanford will accept ballots during regular office hours until then, but will also have her office open from 8 a.m. until noon Saturday, Feb. 29, and Saturday, March 7.

Absentee ballots can be mailed in but must be received in Stanford’s office by 5 p.m. Monday, March 9.

Stanford also wanted to again remind voters that the polling locations for some districts are changing.

The most recent is precinct 501, which has been voting at Northeast Mississippi Community College.

Now, those voters will go to Watson Grove Baptist Church at 521 E. Bankhead Street. The precinct will be renamed Watson Grove as well. This is the county’s largest precinct and the move should make more parking space available as well as space in the voting area.

Other changes have been made, mostly to move voting away from county schools. The move is partly due to school security reasons, but also because of crowding.

Voters who used to go to Myrtle School will now go to Temple Baptist Church at 1026 North St. in Myrtle.

Ingomar voters will now go to Ingomar Baptist Church at 1112 CR 90.

West Union voters will now go to Conlee Construction at 1533 Hwy. 30 West.

East Union will now go to Ellistown Baptist Church at 1006 CR 185.

Signs will be posted at the former locations for those who forget or are not aware of the changes.

This year, Union Countians will vote on a president, U. S. senator, U. S. representative, Supreme Court justice, five election commissioners and one county school board trustee.

On March 10, voters will select their preference for Democratic and Republican nominees for president, senator and representative and winners will be placed on the general election ballot Nov. 3.

Voters will have to choose either a Democratic or Republican ballot March 10, but a mixture of party candidates will be on the same ballot Nov. 10. State law says a person may vote in a party primary only if he or she “intends to support the nominations made in the primary in which he participates.” There is no realistic way to enforce this, however.

If no candidate receives at least 50 percent of the total vote in the primary, the top two vote-getters will face each other in a run-off March 31. That’s only likely to happen in the Democratic presidential primary, due to the large number of candidates to divide votes.

The voting for election commissioners, county school trustee, Supreme Court judge and whether to legalize medical marijuana will not be on the ballot until November.