If you mean Mississippi: look, dude, it’s an election, not a spectator sport to give you a dopamine rush. Their counting process can be improved (which local outlets like the Mississippi Free Press have covered), and they brought a lot of the affidavit ballot headache on themselves by improperly purging the voter rolls through known-shitty data as a form of voter suppression, but that doesn’t change that the counting process isn’t done for your entertainment. As long as everything’s counted when the state needs to submit it (and in Mississippi’s case, when the counties need to submit to the state), they’ve done their job.
If you mean the decision desks who called it, until today’s dump from Hinds County, Colom was ahead by only about 2500 votes with about 15,000 more left. Decision desks have a reputation at stake – built up over decades – anytime they call a race, let alone one as watched and consequential as this one.
And if you mean Hyde-Smith, she did this probably less than an hour after the AP called it. She did this quickly and overall has been basically fine through this process.
She did this quickly and overall has been basically fine through this process.
The concession was the big surprise to me. I don’t know anything about her but I assumed she’d drag it into the courts, which was to my understanding, the only path to a ‘recount’ in Mississippi
Agreed; I was surprised to see it come so quickly. I think this is a combination of:
Knowing there’s no way to victory in the courts.
Following the herd of the rest of Republicans federally; if she’s basically the only one standing alone crying fraud, it’s probably not going to win over much public opinion.
The fact that contesting this would probably only bring more attention to how voting in Mississippi is already heavily rigged in favor of Republicans, e.g. the purging of voter rolls. (Edit: And wanting the fire around this to die down for the 2028 election season.)
The possibility that Colom’s lead is still going to increase from here, given how he’s been outperforming on affidavit and absentee ballots.
Her not wanting to drag this out any longer, given she did just lose her Senate seat from Mississippi to a black, Democratic man.
“Her not wanting to drag this out any longer, given she did just lose her Senate seat from Mississippi to a black, Democratic man.” that she denied a promotion to a federal judgeship because she is MAGA trash.
100%. Even accounting for the fact she’s among a sea of Republicans who lost big this election, this has got to be pretty humiliating. I would just want it to be over in her shoes – and apparently she agrees.
Also unless a state outlines a mechanism for the government to pay for a recount, recounts are typically paid for by the challenger’s campaign. That would have cost her millions
As long as everything’s counted when the state needs to submit it (and in Mississippi’s case, when the counties need to submit to the state), they’ve done their job.
Not quite. The faster they’re done counting, the more people can start thinking about how they should engage with their new elected official. Mostly thinking of Senate leadership here, since the election for that is in 6 days. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s not like nothing is gained by counting the ballots faster.
That’s a fair consideration I hadn’t thought of. Still, I don’t think that takes away from “As long as everything’s counted when [they] need to submit it, they’ve done their job.” That isn’t “there’s nothing to be gained by counting faster before the deadline” as much as it is “election workers shouldn’t be pressured to count votes faster”.
Like for example, when I mentioned ways to improve the counting process (noted in e.g. this video, see 4:55), I was mainly focused on alleviating the workload of election officials rather than speeding up the results for audiences. Things like more early voting (which Mississippi basically doesn’t have) speed up the count, but the primary benefit is that they make it easier for people to vote, the secondary benefit is that it’s easier for election workers, and ultimately speeding up the results to audiences is a tertiary benefit at best.
As long as the results get in on time, I don’t think there’s much compelling reason to make election results go brrrr if it doesn’t improve voting accessibility or alleviate some burden on the people doing the counting.
The concession was the big surprise to me. I don’t know anything about her but I assumed she’d drag it into the courts, which was to my understanding, the only path to a ‘recount’ in Mississippi
Agreed; I was surprised to see it come so quickly. I think this is a combination of:
“Her not wanting to drag this out any longer, given she did just lose her Senate seat from Mississippi to a black, Democratic man.” that she denied a promotion to a federal judgeship because she is MAGA trash.
100%. Even accounting for the fact she’s among a sea of Republicans who lost big this election, this has got to be pretty humiliating. I would just want it to be over in her shoes – and apparently she agrees.
Also, keeping the campaign staff in the office, paying lawyers to prepare legal challenges … that all costs money, pretty significant money.
If you can see the writing on the wall, it may be better to cut your losses and focus on the next campaign instead.
Also unless a state outlines a mechanism for the government to pay for a recount, recounts are typically paid for by the challenger’s campaign. That would have cost her millions
Probably not, given the title, but maybe they meant electing a black person.
Not quite. The faster they’re done counting, the more people can start thinking about how they should engage with their new elected official. Mostly thinking of Senate leadership here, since the election for that is in 6 days. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s not like nothing is gained by counting the ballots faster.
That’s a fair consideration I hadn’t thought of. Still, I don’t think that takes away from “As long as everything’s counted when [they] need to submit it, they’ve done their job.” That isn’t “there’s nothing to be gained by counting faster before the deadline” as much as it is “election workers shouldn’t be pressured to count votes faster”.
Like for example, when I mentioned ways to improve the counting process (noted in e.g. this video, see 4:55), I was mainly focused on alleviating the workload of election officials rather than speeding up the results for audiences. Things like more early voting (which Mississippi basically doesn’t have) speed up the count, but the primary benefit is that they make it easier for people to vote, the secondary benefit is that it’s easier for election workers, and ultimately speeding up the results to audiences is a tertiary benefit at best.
As long as the results get in on time, I don’t think there’s much compelling reason to make election results go brrrr if it doesn’t improve voting accessibility or alleviate some burden on the people doing the counting.