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BUCKING PRECENDENT, SECRETARY OF STATE MARK RITCHIE BURIES INFORMATION ON MINNESOTA’S UPCOMING PRECINCT CAUCUSES
By Michael B. Brodkorb | January 3, 2008
Some days I wonder if Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his staff are done even trying anymore. I wonder if they have given up. Today is one of these days. As I wrote earlier, I spent a few hours yesterday down in SD 25 to help the Republican-endorsed candidate, Ray Cox. After I got home, I starting thinking about Minnesota's upcoming precinct caucuses (no, I don't have other hobbies) and I decided to visit Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's website to get some information.
The website of Minnesota's Secretary of State is usually a good place to find information on Minnesota precinct caucuses. Recent examples would be 2002, 2004, and 2006, when then-Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer actively promoted Minnesota's precinct caucuses on her official website. Kiffmeyer even promoted the potential date of future precinct caucuses.
But sadly, an interested voter looking for information on Minnesota's upcoming precinct caucuses wouldn't be able to easily find information on Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's official website.
You'd practically need a map to find the information. From the Secretary of State's homepage, you have to go to "About the Office," and then to "News," and then to "Publications," and then scroll down under "Elections & Voting: Voter Information" to finally find a document called "Minnesota Precinct Caucuses."
Even more shocking is that Secretary of Mark Ritchie's "Election and Voting" Meeting and Event Calendar doesn't list the precinct caucuses as an event. Please note in the picture below that February 5, 2008 has no events listed. An event for January 28, 2008 is listed but nothing for February 5, 2008, the day of Minnesota's precinct caucuses.
How lazy is Secretary of State Mark Ritchie when he can't even post information on Minnesota's precinct caucuses on the "Election and Voting" calendar of his official website? This post is going up at 7:57 a.m., so let's track how quickly Ritchie's office posts information on Minnesota's precinct caucuses.
Here's a suggestion for Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his staff: create an easy to find "precinct caucus" section of the website so interested parties can actually find information. Since the caucuses are nearly 30 days away, put a link on the front page of the website. Translation: do your job.
I'll repeat what I wrote earlier: incompetent is the best word to describe Secretary of State Ritchie. Here's another way to say incompetent: Brownie Ritchie, you're doing a heckuva job.
Tags: Mark Ritchie
Topics: Mark Ritchie | 7 Comments »
7 Responses to “BUCKING PRECENDENT, SECRETARY OF STATE MARK RITCHIE BURIES INFORMATION ON MINNESOTA’S UPCOMING PRECINCT CAUCUSES”
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January 3rd, 2008 at 10:10 AM
***
Brownie Ritchie, you’re doing a heckuva job.
***
That one’s gonna leave a mark….
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 AM
Two kind of sad you have to come here for anyone to actually see what you write.
Still lonely in your blog land?
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:12 PM
ritchie should have the integrity to quit.
but he has none, so he’ll stay on.
punk loser.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:09 PM
Republicans should force a vote on the House floor on booting Ritchie out of office. Let’s force the DFL vulnerables to take a stand.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:52 AM
[...] Yesterday, I wrote a stinging post how Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his office were bucking precedent and burying information on Minnesota's upcoming precinct caucuses. [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 12:58 PM
This is crap, and now you know it.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:08 PM
Gosh, didn’t the Republican party tell you how it was working with the Secretary of State’s office to put up the online precinct caucus finder? Or did you know it was coming and had to get a little pre-emptive water poisoning in?
It went online today (1/15).
Here’s what Sarah Janecek said about it yesterday in PIM:
A cool new tool to help people interested in getting involved is the precinct caucus finder online at the SOS’s website:
http://www.sos.state.mn.us/home/index.asp
Politics in Minnesota raved about it yesterday:
http://www.politicsinminnesota.com/2008/jan/14/mark-mark
“Kudos to DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. His office is set to launch a brilliant and extremely helpful new tool: A precinct caucus finder.
This is no small feat. Minnesota precinct caucuses are held in myriad places like schools, churches and town halls, and many of the locations change at the last minute. Notes Ritchie, “We had fabulous cooperation from all the political parties, big and small.”
Starting tomorrow, anyone can go to the SOS home page and punch in an address. The search engine will deliver a drop down menu listing the parties that are officially having caucuses with their locations. The political parties holding caucus are the DFL, the GOP, the Constitution, the Green and the Libertarian. The Independence Party is having its caucus online, so the SOS site will have that link. The Independence and Green parties are also organizing differently, and the SOS site will provide clear direction.
Ritchie thinks the caucus finder will go live with “99.9% accuracy,” but his office will work to incorporate all the changes that are sure to follow in the coming weeks before the big day, February 5.
To the best of our ad hoc phone calling and web surfing, it appears that Minnesota is the first state that will have a caucus locator online. It’s the kind of “access to democracy” thing that makes Minnesota proud and nation-leading. Way to go, Mark, the SOS staff and all the political party staff who helped the SOS staff.”
I’d guess that work on this large project involving multi-partisan cooperation started before your Jan. 3 post went up. Not trying anymore? On the contrary, the SOS, the staff, and the parties as well were working together to make the precinct caucuses even more accessible.