NATCHEZ — Although they hoped to finish by Friday evening, local Democratic Party members made it through counting absentee and affidavit ballots for six of 20 precincts.

“We have done six boxes, but we’re halfway done, really because of the size of those boxes,” said Audrey Seale, vice chair of the Natchez-Adams County Democratic Executive Committee.

They started counting and verifying ballots Wednesday and worked roughly from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday. They will not count any ballots today or Sunday.

There’s a reason they won’t work over the weekend, Seale said.

“We’re tired,” she said. “It is a long process, and we’ve had the largest turnout we’ve had in ages.”

Even though state law gives the parties 10 days to certify the election, Seale said she hoped to have the ballots certified by Tuesday.

“If we have to work late, we will,” she said. “We will stay as late as it takes. We’ve got to get it done.”

The election commission needs time to compose and print the runoff ballots. The latest the commission wants ballots back is Aug. 23. The runoff election is scheduled for Aug. 28.

The process has had some disturbances, she said. Audience members — mostly candidates observing the process — often talked and distracted the workers, Seale said.

It got so bad Thursday that the workers had to re-count one box with 58 ballots because they were distracted by the noise, she said.

Britt Gibson, a Supervisor District 3 candidate, was one of the handful of county candidates observing the session.

Gibson said he was just making sure things were done right.

“These are honest people, but I like to make sure they count them right,” he said.

Because the precincts counted early weren’t in the district for which he was running, Gibson said he was really anticipating the next batch of ballots to see how he did.

Candidates for other races that might come to a runoff, such as circuit clerk and tax collector, also kept watch over the process.

One obstacle that came up in the election process was that a number of affidavit ballots, used for voters not on the election rolls, reportedly went missing from the Duncan Park polling station. The poll worker filed a police report.

It is up to the parties to determine how to handle such a situation.

“You can’t count what you don’t have,” Seale said. “I don’t have any proof that there were ever any missing ballots. I only heard it from one person.”

The workers have already counted the box out of which the ballots were reportedly taken, she said.

“(The election worker) told me there were six missing,” Seale said. “It’s a non-issue because we’re talking about six ballots.”

Nearly half of affidavit ballots are not counted normally because either they are filled out incorrectly or it cannot be verified that the voter lives where he says, she said.

“Probably three would not have counted, and three ballots are not going to make a difference in this race,” Seale said.

Until the Democratic committee certifies the election, candidates who might make a runoff won’t be sure they should start campaigning, and voters won’t know if they can vote for their candidate on an absentee ballot.

Voters can cast an absentee ballot before the candidates are verified, but that would be risky, Election Commission Chairman Larry Gardner said.

“You can use the ballot from the primary election,” he said. “Thy take a chance in voting for someone that doesn’t make the runoff.”

If someone votes for a candidate that doesn’t make the runoff, the vote simply doesn’t count, Gardner said.

“They’d be wise to wait to see who’s on the ballot,” he said.