MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Election officials say there have been no real problems so far at the polls during early voting.The only problem, the people they thought would show up haven’t.
There were no big crowds or long lines at early voting spots around Shelby County.
Early voter Bryan Hawkins had an idea why.
“I think there is a summer-time paralysis. You have vacation, children out of school,” said Hawkins.
Shelby County’s new Administrator of Elections, Linda Phillips, was banking on 70,000 early voters.
One week to go and they’re not even half way there.
“They tell me it’s gonna get better,” said Phillips.
She has been making some changes, hoping to get more voters educated about primary voting.
“Some people are confused by the primaries thinking they should be able to vote for Democrat and Republican Primary and that is just not the way it works,” said Phillips.
Another confusion she said is over who can actually vote for whom.
A new state app is helping with that.
With a tap, Go Vote TN shows you all the candidates in your district.
“You can get election results off of that app as well,” said Phillips.
She is hoping for a trouble-free election, especially since she knows about the prior complaints of malfunctioning equipment and people getting wrong ballots.
“Every voter’s physical address has been compared with the GIS layers in their district to make sure they are in the correct district so they will get the correct ballot,” said Phillips.
There are also more machines at each poll.
“I assign 1 voting machine for every 100 expected voters,” said Phillips.
She hopes it makes voting quicker.
She said she hopes by the November Presidential Election, all the kinks of the past will be ironed out.
The new administrator also plans to have more training for election workers and she also wants to hire more employees.
State, primary and Shelby County elections are August 4.
Visit the Shelby County Election Commission