Social media pages were filled with complaints by voters this week who said they were forced to vote by affidavit even though they regularly voted for years. Such complaints are becoming relevant as there are 17,000 uncounted affidavit ballots in the Mississippi Senate race. Indeed, Northside Sun publisher Wyatt Emmerich was one of those who almost lost his right to vote. Mr. Emmerich told JJ:
I’ve been going to fire station on Lakeland to vote for thirty years with no problem. This time, they held up a tablet where I was supposed to sign electronically. They said there was some problem with my name. It’s the new electronic step they introduced for the first time where I got disqualified.
They kept trying to figure it out. Probably some snafu. There was some electronic gadget they introduced that disqualified me so I had to vote affidavit.
On the affidavit envelope, on the back, there are four checkboxes for reasons to vote affidavit. None of those reasons applied to me nor was there another category. The poll worker wrote a note.
Rick Hasen provided more information in his Election Law Blog:
“It just kind of blew me away,” Lowery said. “And a few people I was in line with to get the affidavit, they felt the same way. They had all been registered to vote there. One guy next to me said he’s been voting there for 30 years.” Lowery said the last time he checked online today, his vote was still marked as unprocessed. Thousands of Mississippians like Lowery — whose votes may decide a critical U.S. Senate race, in which Democrat Scott Colom holds a slim lead over Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) — are still waiting to have their ballots counted. That’s because of the Republican secretary of state’s contract with Experian, a global credit reporting agency whose data has been described as riddled with errors, that threw thousands of voters into “inactive” status in the months leading up to the general election. In highly populated DeSoto County, over 15,000 people were removed as active voters in the time between the primary and general election, according to an analysis from Mississippi Today with data from the state. Other counties with high rates of inactive voters include Jackson with 14,063 and Harrison, where Lowery votes, with 28,921. For many of these voters showing up to the polls on Tuesday, this was a shock. … Thessalia Merivaki, who researches elections at Washington State University, said that while states often partner with outside agencies to help keep their voter rolls up to date, this comes with significant challenges when data is not accurate — as it appears to be with Experian. “We have evidence that some of the data are not reliable because eligible voters have been erroneously inactivated and then they never received the mail alert because it was sent to the wrong address, because the data were faulty,” Merivaki told Democracy Docket. “It’s such a close election where literally every vote counts,” Merivaki added. “And my assessment is these affidavits are gonna really make or break who wins this election.”… Article
Secretary of State Michael Watson replied on Facebook:
We’re getting multiple calls about people not showing up as active voters, so we wanted to share a few details. Voter roll maintenance is the cornerstone of election integrity. Our office obtains data for the entire state and sends it down to the counties. The election commissioners receive the information and are charged with verifying it before updating anyone’s voter roll status. Thankfully, affidavit voting is used to catch any errors or those who live in the same county but forgot to update their info. Affidavit voting also reactivates the voter’s status in the Statewide Election Management System (SEMS). When the commission processes affidavit ballots, the public is allowed to observe. By the way, for those voting via affidavit ballot, you can track your ballot by going to yallvote.ms and click on the My Election Day tool. The extra few minutes it may take to vote via affidavit ballot are well worth the election integrity added by having cleaner voter rolls!
So are those people going to be restored to the voter rolls?
17 comments:
And now the gop complains the voter rolls are messed up after they did the experian experieence, so they gotta send out 50 lawyers to watch the vote counting. Too funny.
Michael Watson, in his haste to 'clean up the system', instead, effed up the system and it could cost our current senator a job. Let's assume a thousand voters, when told they were not on the books, were pissed, turned around and left.
Trump, the GOP, and the MSGOP thought that disenfranchising voters would work to their advantage. And it still might, in the case of CHS. But the epic screw-up with Iran and failure to lower the inflationary pressures on citizens, was too powerful of a motivator to remove the GOP from power.
One of the truisms of American politics is that Republicans try to make it as difficult to vote as possible and Democrats try to make it as easy to vote as possible. That's because Republicans don't believe in democracy.
12:10, Iran wasn't on the ballot, as much as some would like for it have been. (The left, captured by Iranian/Palestinian propaganda, and the right, looking for a simple scapegoat issue to keep from having to look in the mirror).
Mr. Watson's Facebook post is a prime example of a public official denying primary responsibility for his own bad decisions, and bowing to outside pressure.
Watson is throwing the local officials under the bus for not catching all of the mistakes caused by the Experian cf. Quality individual.
View in the rear view mirror:
Trump's mistake in Iran was not finishing the Mullahs, IRGC and missile production off in the initial strikes. Had he done so no one would grieve the dead twelver fanatics, the Hormuz Strait would have been normal and international and Trump would have been a hero. Then he could have let Israel manage the rebuild in Iran (becoming their friends), with the Saudis helping, while turning his attention to our Economy.
But he wanted an undoable "deal" with the terrorist regime so he could quit the killing of them. He apparently lacks the guts to kill cockroaches.
America is
NOT A DEMOCRACY! It is a representative republic.
Where were you indoctrinated?
Do all you RINOs live in Fondren?
I stayed home because of the betrayals by Trump and how Hyde-Smith aligned with Trump. Trump has lit the Middle East on fire and it sure wasn’t for the American people. It’s for another country. I’m leaning away from the Republican party now. What happened to putting America above foreign countries? Republicans deserved to lose the Senate.
Krusatyr makes the mistake of thinking that 12:19 is educated instead of indoctrinated.
Watson's wife is a friend of my family, but he has been less than impressive as an SOS.
12:10 said, "But the epic screw-up with Iran and failure to lower the inflationary pressures on citizens, was too powerful of a motivator to remove the GOP from power."
And just who gave us the massive inflation? Joe Biden. Liberals are too dumb to understand that when you jack food prices up 35% that lowering inflation still means the food prices increase, but at a slower rate of increase. Actually, liberals understand this completely but they know that their base is too stupid to understand this fact. Hillary Clinton was caught on a hot microphone confirming this very thing.
Liberals are inherently mean people. Socialists simply want to enslave people.
What a dumbass to use experian to verify voter information! Republicans deserve to lose for all the gerrymandering they have doing to suppress the vote. Backfired on these mororns!
I clicked on the yallvote.ms link in Mr. Watson's statement & his website couldn't find my address. I voted without any problems - but I also took my passport for backup. That's because, prior to the election, I tried using the feature on the SOS website that allows residents to see whether they're registered to vote. That part of his website couldn't find me either. Living in Hinds County, I expected worse.
12:51 - Krusatyr - ‘Representative Republic’ and ‘Representative Democracy’ describe the same system. Representatives mean we elect middle men instead of everyone voting on everything.
dēmos kratos (the people rule/power) - Greek
res publica (the public thing) - Latin
It's the same idea. Power comes from the people.
What we actually have is plutocracy (rule by the wealthy) - Greek
Civics class, 10th grade.
Fondren RINO
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