Under Mississippi law, following an election, the counties have 10 days to certify their election results. Our office has a total of 30 days from the date of the election to aggregate all votes cast from Mississippi’s 82 counties. While cross checking and reviewing the county certifications, our office noticed a few minor errors with the number of undervotes and overvotes reported specifically relating to the three ballot measures. We are currently working with these counties to correct the errors and will post amended county recapitulation reports for each county once the corrected certified results are uploaded.
Since receiving official recapitulation reports, two counties have reported additional errors. One county entered their results incorrectly, but the county has since submitted an “Amended” recapitulation report. Another county notified our office approximately 70 of their ballots had not been counted, but is currently in the process of amending its results to reflect these additional ballots. If any county submits an amended recapitulation report, both the original and amended report will be posted to our website for public viewing.
While these errors will have no impact on the final results of our recent general election, I’m committed to being completely transparent, open and honest to make sure Mississippians have full faith in our elections process. As long as I am Secretary of State, every legally cast vote will be counted.
Final results will be posted here or before December 3, 2020.
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Release from Secretary of State Michael Watson.
