Derek Willis over at The Upshot via The New York Times, has drawn attention to something that has privately annoyed me for a few days now.
Mississippi primary election was six days ago. No results posted on Secretary of State site yet: http://t.co/AInlekUJRG
— Derek Willis (@derekwillis) June 10, 2014
To give you an idea of how stupid this is, Rankin Co. has HTML of results. The state can't tap into this? https://t.co/1rcWqGxpLQ
— Derek Willis (@derekwillis) June 10, 2014
I mean, the Miss. SoS knows the results of the primary, yes? But it can't post even PDFs of unofficial results? Boggles the mind.
— Derek Willis (@derekwillis) June 10, 2014
Much ado has been made regarding protecting the integrity of elections under Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. Hosemann even suggested in an Election Day press release that they had not heard any problems relating to Voter ID, despite the fact that I personally called to report 2 (two) of my own.But the issue here is that we are six days removed from an election and Hosemann's office has absolutely dropped the ball in reporting its data. Not only does this cause trouble for nerds like myself interested in checking out precincts in depth, it means that nobody really knows how close the election was, including the media.
In fact, without official announcement or certification from Delbert Hosemann's office, how do we even know that a runoff was necessary?
This is a wee bit troubling as Hosemann publicly endorsed Cochran after flirting with the idea of running himself.
Why are we waiting? I've done enough data parsing to know that the Secretary's office doesn't even digitize the returns. They merely scan them and publish.
Something's got to give. You know, for integrity's sake.
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UPDATE: Derek Willis from The Upshot as well as comments below have an update regarding this issue.
“We don’t even certify the results,” said Pam Weaver, communications director for the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office. “But as soon as the parties send the results to us, we post them.” A similar process is in place in Alabama. Under state law, the parties have until June 13 to send the results to state officials.
Why are we waiting? I called the Secretary of State's office and asked. I was told that for primaries, the law places the political parties in charge of managing the elections and reporting the vote totals. By law the parties have ten days to do so which, for this past election, means June 13. The Secretary of State's office said that when it receives those totals, it will promptly post them on its website and those will be the "official" totals. The person I spoke with (Amanda) specifically said that in primaries, the Secretary of State is just the repository for the official reports from the political parties.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know if that's true?
No results will be final until after 5 p.m. Tuesday because voters without ID have until then to return and redeem their affadavit ballots.
ReplyDeleteI am not afraid to tell my name, Julia O'Neal from Ocean Springs. I was bullied by an "Election Commissioner" on Thursday morning at 7:30 a.m., named Joe Barlow, whose opening salvo was "Why did you vote in both the Democratic and Republican primaries?" This person accused me of a crime and refused to even discuss proof. I defy them to show my signature on both lists. And my driver's license hasn't left my wallet nor my passport left my house. These politicians in MS are crooks. This fellow thought he could intimidate an old woman democratic voter. I'm filling out the Ethics Commission form today, as the Sec'y of State's office, the AG's office, etc., have not gotten back to me. What a pile of corruption in this state.
ReplyDelete