Friday, November 10, 2023

Flashback Friday: Election Commission Stupidity

 The Hinds County Election Commission is back in the news this week after it screwed up yet again.  Again? Well, check out this October 1, 2012 post when one Election Commissioner said current Vice-Chairman Jermal Clarke was lazy and too dumb to figure out how to use the operating system.  This was some of the best video ever shot for JJ.  These two didn't care and went at it.  Just watch. Start at 13:00 in second video. It gets real good at 21:15.  Dumb then and dumb now.  81 of 82 counties had no problems with split precincts (and Madison County is decorated with them.)  

The regular meeting of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors today was better than the WWF as two Election Commissioners, Jermel Clark (District 3) and Connie Cochran (District 4) went after each other at the podium. Mr. Clark is the President of the Election Commmission. Mr. Clark admitted the military absentee ballots were not mailed out to service members by the deadline.





Ms. Cochran finally appears at 13:30. She doesn't appear in part I.




This is not the first time these two have butted heads nor will it be the last. Mr. Clark (no, not THAT Mr. Clark), addressed the Board of Supervisors and was the only commissioner present. He accused Mrs. Cochran of sabotaging the election process, changing ballots that were mailed, removing the ballot from the computer system, and refusing to train him.

Supervisors Robert Graham and Kenneth Stokes asked questions about his allegations until Supervisor Phil Fisher said it was not fair to keep attacking someone and making decisions without giving her the opportunity to defend herself. Mr. Graham agreed and asked someone to call Mrs. Cochran.

Mrs. Cochran appeared at the podium a few minutes later and gave it right back to Mr. Clark. She said the reason he didn't know how to perform certain tasks was because he "refused to take the initiative." She said she had removed the ballot from the system because there were changes that had to be made to two precincts and the system would not allow any alterations to be made while the ballot was active. She said he was "misleading" the board of supervisors and finally said he was too dumb to understand how to operate the system.

The entire disagreement apparently stemmed from a dispute over the placement of candidates on the ballots. Mr. Clark wanted Democratic candidates placed first in each race, above the Republican candidate. Ms. Cochran told the board the Election Commission had placed the candidates for the major parties in each race in alphabetical order. Mr. Clark told the board he did not agree with that placement and said it was a tactic by Republicans to manipulate the ballot. He said Bill Marcy would be placed above Bennie Thompson and Marilyn Avery above her challenger. However, such bias does not appear to be the case upon closer inspection as under an alphabetical system, Barack Obama would appear above Mitt Romney, Gore over Wicker, and Banks over Waller.

Ms. Cochran told the board since she refused to draft the ballot with all Democrats placed first as desired by Mr. Clark, he attempted to create his ballot. She said after several days, Mr. Clark asked her for help. She said she would - if the candidates were placed in alphabetical order as the commission had done for over twenty years. Mr. Clark did not agree with her conditions and sent a letter to county officials accusing her of being "resistant" (Letter posted below). Board President Robert Graham repeatedly tried to get the two to direct their comments to the board but usually to little avail.

Mr. Clark naturally took greeeeeeeeeeat offense to being called dumb (but never apologized for his earlier accusations of sabotage and election fraud). He repeatedly referred to Mrs. Cochran as "that woman" or "this woman" as he refued to call her by name. The entire Board made it clear they wished the election commission would quit bringing their fights to them when the Supervisors have little authority to do anything regarding the commission. The Supervisors eventually voted to launch an investigation.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

That guys is so typical...

Anonymous said...

Mental giants!!!

Anonymous said...



But, but, but, I read yesterday this was fault of MsGOP

Anonymous said...

He had one job to do, and he couldn’t do it

Anonymous said...

I doubt it changed the outcome in the county elections, but it may in state election.

I would hope there would be texts to remind workers and officials of deadlines.

Anonymous said...

That lady knows her job. Without question.

Remake the ballot with all democrats listed first----good grief. This guy is an idiot.

Anonymous said...

This is what it looks like when someone wants the power but they don't want the responsibility.
For someone to say they are the boss, and you need to tell me how to be the boss, is just admitting they have no business being in their position. This sort of thing is how an entire locale (be it city or county) can go into a long-term period of decline and decay. The positions of responsibility and power (for everything from streets to jails to water to elections) are held by incompetent people who don't just lack leadership...they have no clue.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of Hank Johnson's Guam speech.

Anonymous said...

10:58 - you are spot on and are describing the major fallacy of a democracy.

Anonymous said...

The election commission should have nothing to do with party affiliation whatsoever. The job is to manage a fair and efficient electoral process nothing more. That's paperwork. Anyone who has other motives has no business with the job. Alphabetical order is common sense fairness and anyone opposing it shows he or she has ulterior motives and does not care about the job itself.

Anonymous said...

November 10, 2023 at 11:52 AM, hahahaha that's a good one.

Anonymous said...

So this latest election isn't the first time the election commission has had to deal with split districts? This means the commission has no written or documented processes to follow from one election to the next. It's all tribal knowledge
Secretary of State Michael nailed it when he told news media that his office conducted the same training with all 82 counties - saying only one county (Hinds) got it wrong. The election commission is dumb beyond relief.

Anonymous said...

Idiocracy has arrived.

Anonymous said...

The Hinds County Election Commission is 31 flavors of stupid.

Anonymous said...

They want the job but not the work.

Anonymous said...

The problem is that dumb son of a bitch is still a member of the Hinds County Election Commission, and the dumb SOB still doesn't know a damn thing about how to do his job.

Robert Graham created this mess when he pushed through his redistricting plan back in 2012 (at the time this fiasco was happening) in order to push Connie Cochran out of office -- by making District 4 a majority black district where it previously had been a 50/50 BVAP.

Robert got what he asked for, and now probably regrets it. The only competent person on the Commission was defeated in 2016 and it has gone downhill every election since.

This week we saw in Hinds County what ignorance prevails in this elected body - can't even multiply the number of voters by 60% and make sure that there are enough ballots in a precinct to conduct an election. They have provided numerous 'reasons' for this mistake - that the heavy voter turnout caused the problem - ignoring of course that the turnout in Hinds County was not heavy, in fact was 10% lower than the last statewide election and lower than the 2020 presidential election -- that was conducted in the midst of COVID.

The ballot fiasco was only one of several screwups in this election. And from what I heard for the poll workers at my polling place, the Election Commission did not pay the workers for working last August for three months -- and then made them drive downtown to pickup their checks because the Commission failed to put their addresses into the system that printed out their checks.

For Mr. Clark to think that it is the responsibility of the other commissioners to train him in how to do the job is a laughable concept. Should have asked the supervisors which ones 'trained' the others how to do their job when they were elected.

Eighteen years on the Commission and Clark still does not know - nor do his fellow commissioenrs - how to properly and legally conduct an election.

Hinds County shinning at its best. This time, on national news.

Anonymous said...

Not hard to tell who knows what they are doing and who doesn't.

If he would just shut up and listen to her, he could sit back and look like a big shot which is all he really wants.

Anonymous said...

Did that lady that Chris McDaniel supported win?

Anonymous said...

Calling Mr. Clark stupid is an insult to stupidity.

Anonymous said...

November 10, 2023 at 7:07 PM "They want the job but not the work."

Exactly. There is a lot of that going on in Hinds County government and Jackson government.

I guess that election just snuck up on them without notice.

PS - They are now blaming this fiasco on the state.

Anonymous said...

Democrat Scholars!

Anonymous said...

This is an example of the brain trust that keeps MS in last place in everything. Just like the "goon squad" story, this also has made national news.


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