But I'm also confused. See, when I finally turned off the computer Wednesday morning, Indiana was still too close to call. That being my home state, I was thrilled (never in my lifetime has there been a question of which way Indiana would go—it has been a "red state" since before the term existed—so a tie like that is amazing), and once Obama had it in the bag, I figured it wasn't a big deal, I could find out later which way Indiana ended up going. So this morning, I do a Google search for "Indiana election results" and the first thing to come up is the Indiana Secretary of State's page, which said (and currently says) McCain got more votes. Sadface. But a bit more searching tells me that all the networks finally called Indiana for Obama.
So who's right? The numbers of votes on the MSNBC page are bigger, which would make it seem like their info is more complete, but they (and the other networks) all say "99% of precincts reporting," so did they call it and then stop updating without complete info or something? And the Indiana Secretary of State's page says it was last updated Wednesday at 11:09 AM, and they ought to have the official information, no? I mean, it's the freaking government page. But then again, besides being a raging neocon, Todd Rokita (our sec. of state) is also a blithering idiot. And while I know it's not him personally updating the website, it is his office, so...who knows. I know it doesn't make any difference now, and just to have been that close is historic enough for me, but I'd really like to know who actually ended up getting Indiana's eleven electoral votes.
Either way, yay Obama! It's been a really good couple of days.
*UPDATE* (11/6/08)
So they've updated the Indiana Secretary of State's webpage (it's now says "Last updated November 6, 2008 (11:28 AM)"), but it's still got McCain having more votes. In fact, it doesn't even look like the numbers have changed significantly (I can't be sure on this, because I didn't write them down earlier, but they look quite similar, and still far smaller than the numbers on MSNBC, which have not changed). But every source I can find has Indiana as having definitely gone for Obama, which makes me think there must be something wrong, or at least something I'm missing, on the Secretary of State's website. Todd Rokita = failplz.
But then again, we knew that already.
*UPDATE NUMBER 2* (still 11/6/08)
I've fired off an email to dear old Todd('s office). It reads as follows:
Your "Election Results" page for the just-past presidential election seems to be showing incomplete and/or misleading information. It currently shows McCain/Palin as having gotten 922513 votes and Obama/Biden as having gotten 839625 votes.
This information appears to be either a)incomplete, or b)not the information I'm looking for (a tally of how many actual votes in total each candidate received, and hence, who won the state).
In case of a), being two days out from the election now, it seems ludicrous that the complete information would not be available here, especially when the major commercial networks all seem to have it (e.g. MSNBC).
In case of b), it needs to be much more clear as to what information I'm looking at, because what it *appears* to be is what I said before, a tally of how many actual votes in total each candidate received. If this is not the case, that needs to be clearly stated, because that is seriously misleading.
I'm really disappointed that I haven't been able to find the information I needed here. I would expect a government website to be a reliable source of info, and I hope the situation will be rectified immediately.
I wonder if anything will happen.
*UPDATE NUMBER 3* (11/13/08)
So, I never heard anything back from dear old Todd, but I happened to think of it and went on over to check out Indiana's election results page again, and look! Information that appears to be accurate! And a big red headline that says "Note: These results are NOT yet official. A number of counties have yet to provide their data to the state." Could we actually be seeing honesty and competency from our Secretary of State's office?
Well, I don't know that I'd go that far. Not having the "official" results, two weeks after the election, seems like an awfully big stretch on the "competency" factor. I'm sure they know the "official" results; they're just too damn lazy to update the webpage. But their totals are at least larger than MSNBC's now, so I'm done messing with it. They can leave that "unofficial" notice up until 2012 for all I care (and I have no doubt they will).
But it's a step in the right direction anyway.
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1 comment:
You should be proud of the fact that you were able to prod Todd Rokita's office to get on the ball. Perhaps they will take their responsibilities more seriously henceforth (doubt it, but it could happen). Way to go! Getting Indiana's Secretary of State to admit that a democratic presidential candidate won the state's electoral votes is a huge feat. I'm sure the whole situation is leaving a bad taste in Rokita's mouth (along with the other state government officials). Indiana still has a long way to go, but perhaps there is hope after all.
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