The Republican Party is demanding that Mississippi election officials “separate and preserve” all provisional ballots cast in the midterms — the first step in a likely bid to throw out votes in the state’s extremely close U.S. Senate race*.

The vote count is ongoing, and Democrat Scott Colom currently leads Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith ® by several hundred votes, with certification due by Nov. 13. His victory would represent a significant upset in the state’s Republican-dominated politics.

    • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Just wait until you hear about the Epstein files! Surrounded by old gray Democrat pedophiles.

      It’s awful!

      Search “Who was on lolita express epstein files” to start and go from there.

      • GuyFawkesV@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Great, let’s lock them up too! EVERYONE in the Epstein files needs their comeuppance!

        But hey buddy…guess who’s name is in there THE MOST? 🤣

      • Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        This is the funniest part of the whole discourse. People act like we can’t bring charges against Republicans because then we’d have to also charge Democrats. I really feel like most people in the world don’t really care who is charged, as long as they are finally brought to justice. There are some people who don’t want their “side” to face justice. Those people are wrong. I don’t care if you were in charge of the biggest and best charity organization. If you’ve done wrong like the people in the Epstein files, you deserve all the punishment.

      • dreamkeeper@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        So what? All pedos should be charged. Just because you’re willing to defend pedophile rapists like Trump doesn’t mean the rest of us are like you. We actually have principles.

  • Gpennyhigh@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I hope more maga votes get thrown out from errors, if they’re going to start all these excuses again to try to throw out votes. The illegal votes are mostly maga folks in cases I recall, but there is data to verify if one wants to. Also, congrats to all the Dem wins and it shows how much voting matters!

    • some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Unfortunately they’re specifically going after the provisional ballots because that’s what’s widening Colom’s lead so late. So that probably wouldn’t happen

      • adarza@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        provisional ballots are the ones that get the most scrutiny before being included in the tally, too.

      • Zanathos@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        And aren’t provisional ballots supposed to be included in the event the race is within 100 votes or something similar? I’m sure it varies state to state but that’s what I remember of their purpose.

    • mkwt@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Provisional ballots are created when a voter shows up at the poll, but there’s some kind of problem with their registration that prevents them from voting. On election day the provisional ballots are tossed in a metaphorical pile labelled “in case of close race, open me.”

      In most elections, the margin of victory is high enough that no one needs to open the provisional ballots or check their eligibility.

      But in this race, it is close enough, so they now need to check whether each individual provisional vote is really eligible to vote or not. This is called “chase and cure,” and it usually involves tracking down and talking to the voters and others (the chase) and getting whatever documentation is missing to establish the eligibility (the cure).

      The Republican party doesn’t want these ballots to be cured or counted, because they expect the votes inside to skew heavily Democratic. So they will oppose. Partly because they caused a bunch of the provisional ballots by kicking people off the rolls wrongly.

      However, I think this is a pretty good position for Colom, if he has an 1,800 lead or so, and he expects any added votes to skew to him.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        So, let me get this straight: the Republican candidate is currently behind and wants them to stop counting?

        • mkwt@lemmy.world
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          I think the whole strategy is to win the provisional ballot fight and get the secretary of state to trigger a recount on the main ballots and hope that recount goes really well for them and shutdown any further recounting after that and then somehow keep the provisionals from ever being counted.

          I think it’s a lot of hopium.

        • NekoKoneko@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          I actually didn’t doubt they have lawyers standing by with a completely procedurally unsound emergency brief to the Supreme Court to demand they stop counting, ready to file at any moment Colom gets behind in the count.

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Would be funny if more of their own votes got thrown out because of this process and the Dem candidate’s lead increased.

      • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        large numbers of Mississippians were forced to vote by affidavit ballot after Secretary of State Michael Watson ® flagged 230,000 voter registrations as “inactive.”

        and if the “inactives” were targetted, then provisional/affidavit votes would just boost that lead.

    • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I think they wouldn’t be surprised, but it’s worth a shot because if they do nothing, they lose; if they do this, they might lose or might win, so of course they’ll try. I’d want Dems trying any ethical challenges were it the other way.

  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Aaaaand here we go folks! Honestly took them longer than I expected to start the fash response. Oh this is gonna be such a fun fucking time…

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        The comical thing is that 49 states have written laws pertaining to automatically doing a recount if the numbers are this close. Kind of like Florida did in 2000. Mississippi is that 1 of 50 states that does not have one.

        So without proven fraud, I can’t see why a judge would give a warrant to recount them

        • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          So without proven fraud, I can’t see why a judge would give a warrant to recount them

          Loyal bootlicking Red judge in red state. That’s all they need

      • Jimbabwe@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Alaska has been showing a ~600 vote difference since this morning. Only 74% counted, but still, that’s pretty dang close!

        • NekoKoneko@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Alaska will take a very long time, I suspect. Ranked choice voting is better, but requires effectively a full count before redistributing losing-candidate votes.

          • BenVimes@lemmy.ca
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            3 days ago

            I’ve read that this is also compounded by how remote some of the communities in Alaska are - it simply takes longer to collect up all the votes to begin with.

          • MumboJumbo@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            The state is also huge and rural. It’s something like 20% the size of the lower 48, full of mountains and forests. I assume that a lot of that information is transmitted, but I also assume that there is a lot of snail mail that takes its time.

  • danc4498@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    The Republican Party is demanding that Mississippi election officials “separate and preserve” all provisional ballots cast in the midterms

    Isn’t this a standard thing? These haven’t been counted yet, but will be if they can be validated or something.

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Called it like a week ago.

    I’m not psychic, they just do this every election. It’s a great way to waste millions of dollars.

  • Hayduke@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    “Wut’s the number after, uh, four, six, six, uh, sevun, sevun, five?”

    -receives blank stares