JACKSON — “This is nuts,” began a Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal headline on a story about proposed election law changes in Mississippi.
Well, you’ve got to be a little nutty to even read election laws, much less understand them. That’s why my friend Pete Perry gets paid to analyze and testify in court on state and local election procedures.
The Journal article described a proposal by Republican Sen. Jeff Tate of Meridian to give Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson powers to audit state and local election procedures. Democratic Sen. David Blount of Jackson questioned aspects of the bill saying, “This is nuts.”
After he and other Democratic senators raised objections to his bill, Tate, chairman of the Senate Elections Committee, let the bill die.
But, of course, the issue didn’t die. A similar bill in the House introduced by Republican Rep. Brent Powell of Brandon and passed out of the House Apportionment and Elections Committee keeps the issue alive.
The gist of the Journal article conveyed Democrats’ view that this proposal, like many across the country, is overkill for mostly nonexistent election fraud issues. “We’ve had an organized attempt to undermine the election system in this country,” said Democratic Sen. Hob Bryan of Amory. “And part of that are the whackos and the nutcases in Arizona that came in with these so-called audits. And that’s what this (bill) looks like to me.”
Democrats’ key concerns seem to be a new process called “risk-limiting audits,” giving audit powers to the secretary of state, allowing a nongovernmental third party to conduct the audits, identifying noncitizens, and lack of transparency in the third-party audit process.
I read details in Powell’s bill until my eyes began to glaze over. So I asked my friend Pete his thoughts. He gave me enough details to restart the glazing. But here is the gist of what he said.
Generally, he sees nothing “egregious” in the bill, saying it seeks to identify and fix mistakes that often occur in election procedures. Noting he has “conducted more than four dozen ballot box inspections in more than a dozen different counties in the state,” he said there are “very few counties where the elections are well run and in accord with required procedures.” He added that reporting results to the secretary of state and “risk-limiting audits” once every four years might cause local officials to do better. He was OK with the secretary of state intervening when audits discover problems, saying, “Someone needs to intervene.”
He did say that selection of a third party firm to do a post-election audit should be based on a “standard of qualifications” (not in the bill), and he did express concerns about election commissions having final say on citizenship determinations.
Hmmm.
Would be nice to end up with a not-nutty bill that strengthens compliance with election procedures and does not invite partisan squabbles. Of course, the true nature of these proposals cannot be known until the secretary of state promulgates final rules and regulations.
Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression. — Isaiah 1:17
- Bill Crawford, of Jackson, is a Republican former state lawmaker.
