Now that all the wild-eyed speculation and finger pointing has subsided, let's look at what really happened with the official certification of the partisan primary results of August 2, 2011.
While Better Mississippi Report doesn't have an inside report on what was going on over at Republican State Headquarters on Amite Street, we do know that the GOP report was filed to the Secretary of State's Office on Aug. 15, three days after the Aug. 12 deadline. Arnie Hederman had to file an amended certification report because one of their counties had failed to report on time (Washington), and someone had incorrectly added a county's return numbers. Here's the amendment letter.
Over on North Congress, a similar scene was playing out at the Mississippi Democratic Party headquarters -- only with 16 counties failing to turn in their vote counts. On Friday, the Mississippi Democratic Party Executive Committee voted to certify as accurate the counts that were certified on the local level.
The trouble was, they couldn't submit a tabulated report without the following counties in hand: Clay, Hancock, Jefferson, Lincoln, Marshall, Oktibbeha, Smith, Stone, Tippah, Tishomingo, Tunica, Walthall, Washington, Wilkinson, Winston, and Yalobusha. Marshall County advised they had submitted the appropriate forms, but nobody could locate them. Friday passed without the Mississippi Democratic Party filing returns with the Secretary of State's Office, though the vote to certify had taken place.
On Monday, the state party staff continued calling the truant counties to submit their returns. Next, the task was to input all the data.
On Tuesday, a single member of the Elections Committee met staff at headquarters and began the compilation process. Better Mississippi Report has learned that the state Democratic Party staff was keeping the Secretary of State employees, particularly "Amanda," informed hour-to-hour of the situation at their headquarters with a determination that the finalized reports would be available by day's end.
In other words, the Mississippi Secretary of State staff knew where the discrepancies lay and also knew of the Democrats' determination to get the certification filed as completely and timely as they could.
Inexplicably, the Secretary of State staff decided to issue a press release proclaiming the Democrats' failure to certify their returns as of 4 p.m. on Tuesday. Here is the release. The Democrats filed at approximately 4:30 p.m.
Result? Mass speculation, confusion, chaos and sincere doubts as to the validity of the Party's absentee ballots cast prior to Tuesday. Oh, and another public black eye for the Mississippi Democratic Party.
Better Mississippi Report questions the motives behind the crowing eminating from Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann's office on Tuesday afternoon at 4 p.m. and longs for the day when Secretary of State Eric Clark held a steel hand over the Elections Division to make sure there was never any hint of partisan application of the Mississippi Election Code by his employees.
After all, late is late, whether there's an R or a D by one's name.
So now, the returns are in. Let the elections proceed. On the legislative agenda for next session: revisiting the certification process with an eye toward extending the time between primaries and runoffs. And perhaps a measure of accountability for the county committees upon whom the entire election process depends.
(Amended 8/18/2011 3:25 p.m. to add Democratic filing time; 7:11 p.m. to correct participants on Tuesday.)
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It is what it is .changed
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