VIDEO: Casting Your Vote

CALHOUN CITY, Miss. (WCBI)-A host of Mississippi republican office holders were on hand in Calhoun County Thursday night speaking with residents, and Mississippi’s Secretary of State Delbert Hoesmann was one of them.

Hosemann tells WCBIvoter apathy has been a big problem that he’s been trying to fix.

This year’s presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton have both been heavily scrutinized since they declared their candidacy leading up to election day.

“If you look at the polls more than half the people don’t like wither candidate,” said Hosemann.

And because of that, Hosemann thinks many people are deciding to just simply not cast their vote for the 2016 president election.

“We have people in Afghanistan where I went just a few years ago, that are fighting and dying today for you to cast your ballot,” he said. “So there’s no excuse for you to get in your truck and cast a ballot.”

Hosemann has spent the past few months working to fix the voter apathy problem.  The secretary of state said has been riding all throughout the Magnolia State trying to educate voters on the importance their exercising their vote.

“Just because you might be mad at one or the other, these people will determine the supreme court, taxes, whether or not we go to war, all of the things that go into a country, that’s what they’ll be doing,” he said.

As a result, the secretary of state said he’s seeing his hard work pay off.  Hosemann said been an increase in the number of absentee ballots requested this year, which helps them gauge the voter turnout.

“We’ve had 24 thousand absentee ballots as of today,” Hosemann explained. “Last year in the gubernatorial election we had 15 thousand as of today, a year ago, so it’s up about nine thousand. That’s not unusual because it’s a presidential year, but we’re seeing an indication of interest out there and if you can look at those absentee ballots you can see more people are coming out.”

However Hosemann is still encouraging  everyone to get out and vote.  The secretary of state also spoke on the success of the Mississippi’s Voter ID law which was passed just last year.

“We put in voter ID and 99.7% of the people signed up to vote,” said Hosemann. “We’ve issues about five thousand of those ID’s to people who would have never had this chance before, and it’s free. Every circuit clerk can issue one today or in the morning.”

Hosemann said he will continue to travel all throughout the state to educate people on voter apathy and Voter ID

For more information just visit http://www.sos.ms.gov/Pages/default.aspx