Area Circuit Clerk says voting will continue rain or shine

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Run Off Elections are in the plans for tomorrow and many are ready to cast their vote but be sure to take the weather report into account before you head to the polls.

With severe weather in the forecast for our area Tuesday, Election Officials want you to know the election goes on – rain or shine.

Even if the lights go out Circuit Court Clerk Tony Rook says the equipment is built for these types of conditions.

“The DS 200 machines that we use have a battery backup in place in the event of a power failure that battery backup will automatically kick in. Voting continues. Voting does not stop,” said Rook.

Depending on the use of the machine it can last up to 4 hours without power.

Rook says you can never be too prepared and that’s why they have a back up- backup plan.

“In the event that we exhaust the backup power. We are currently working with the emergency management agency director as well as volunteer fire stations to make sure they can deploy backup generators,” said Rook.

Rook says whatever the weather, he doesn’t plan to stop the voting or counting process.

“We have a vault here and we will go to the vault and continue the process but we want to give the results to voters as soon as possible as far as I’m concerned. Other than a catastrophic event voting is going to continue,” said Rook.

And the results are planned to be given to voters at a reasonable time.

“As far as the information from the precincts themselves, we should have some information I would expect by 10 o’clock,” said Rook.

The polls will open at 7 and close at 7 pm

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