City of Gulfport adopts changes to its ballot initiative

The Gulfport City Council voted Friday to approve new districts for future city elections, ahead of a looming deadline.

The city had until July 31 to get these changes approved.

Under this new plan, district five will get two new polling stations, district two will have only two polling stations, district four will retain its two constituencies, districts 1 and 3 will each have three polling stations, and districts 6 and 7 will have only one polling station.

“It’s really a double-edged challenge, we want to, you know, make voting as accessible and easy as possible in the city and with the polling places. Part of the challenge is getting people to actually work the polling places from the voting component. And so we want to make sure that we have them well staffed,” said Mayor Billy Hewes.

We don’t want anyone to have any problems voting. We want access to voting to be just like the federal system says, that there are no barriers. So we’re very grateful today that the council passed this,” said Ward Two Councilwoman Ella Holmes-Hines.

These new constituencies and polling locations will apply for the 2025 city elections.