A “Memorable” Weekend for Some Candidates
by Barry Jantz
While readying its public system in advance of primary election night, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters released test election “results” on its website this weekend for every race in San Diego County, although in actuality no such real data can be released until the polls close at 8:00 p.m. on June 5.
The Registar’s office confirmed this is standard procedure prior to each election. The resulting test report clearly indicates the information as being updated 07-04-76, a mock reference to the famous 1776 date.
However, one candidate, David Secor, reacted to the bogus results by churning out a press release, believing he was leading incumbent Duncan Hunter for Congress in “early voting” results. In turn, East County Magazine published the release and subsequently corrected the information.
Another candidate, Rudy Reyes, running against incumbent Dianne Jacob for County Supervisor, said he was on the Registrar of Voters website Friday night and came across the results, showing him leading in the race by about 10 percentage points, with 29.97 percent of the precincts counted.
No challenger has defeated an incumbent County Supervisor in San Diego since … well, since about 1776.
Other races showed a number of head scratching results, although every candidate’s name was listed accurately, along with mock vote totals and percentages.
“We have to test our website before the big day,” said Assistant Registrar Mike Vu. “We are in testing mode, thus the reference to July 4, 1776, so no one is mistaken.” He confirmed that none of the data is accurate, nor should it be construed as matching vote-by-mail ballots cast so far in the election.
A handful of candidates — both Democrats and Republicans — contacted me asking about the results, either having seen the information on-line or second-hand. A search of the website today proved unfruitful in being able to duplicate the report. Although I have a copy of the full document, it is not my intent to post it at this time.
As readers are probably dying to know, the results in the City of San Diego mayoral contest show 30.04 percent of the precincts counted (225 of 749). Running in second place with 19,302 votes — 26.29 percent of the total ballots cast — is Tobiah Pettus.
Comments 6
The Associated Press does the same thing every election year, distributing **TEST** results for state Governors, US Senate, the US House of Representatives, etc.
Both the AP and the Registrar are checking to make sure their systems are ready to report the REAL results a few weeks later.
….. BUT, the numbers SD Rostra reports on how many mail ballots are in– and their Party breakdown — ARE Genuine and Legitimate.
Thanks, Jim, you are correct. Yes, our readers should know that the info being reported by Mr. Sills regarding mail ballots is totally accurate…
http://sdrostra.com/?cat=23
Since he was writing this entry remotely, Mr. Jantz asked us to post it for him. It was originally inadvertently posted by admin without his byline. Sorry, Barry!
Too good to check.
Any half witted human understands the meaning of the word TEST. So if David B Secor thinks he has won his race based on TEST results, 12 days before the election, then he is perfect for the job.
To be clear, the website did not refer to “test.” The only indication that it wasn’t real was the date. Oh, as well as the knowledge that no results are public until the polls close, perhaps.