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AFTER MDE POST, SECRETARY OF STATE MARK RITCHIE’S OFFICE INCREASES PROMOTION OF MINNESOTA PRECINCT CAUCUSES ON OFFICIAL WEBSITE
By Michael B. Brodkorb | January 4, 2008
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.
One of the examples I cited was that Secretary of Mark Ritchie's "Election and Voting" Meeting and Event Calendar didn'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.
Within hours of my post, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's office added information about precinct caucuses to the"Election and Voting" Meeting and Event Calendar. Please note in the picture below that February 5, 2008 now lists precinct caucuses.
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's office has also now created a specific event page for Minnesota's precinct caucuses and placed a link to the previously hard-to-find caucus brochure on the front page.
I feel really good about the fact that my post yesterday exposing this problem had a positive impact and now voters can easily find information on Minnesota's upcoming precinct caucuses.
Tags: Mark Ritchie
Topics: Mark Ritchie | 17 Comments »
17 Responses to “AFTER MDE POST, SECRETARY OF STATE MARK RITCHIE’S OFFICE INCREASES PROMOTION OF MINNESOTA PRECINCT CAUCUSES ON OFFICIAL WEBSITE”
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January 4th, 2008 at 12:31 PM
Thanks!
January 4th, 2008 at 12:33 PM
So, Ritchie is a responsive elected official. Sounds like we elected the right person for the job! Way to go, Mark!
January 4th, 2008 at 12:59 PM
To bad Ritchie is so incompetent. Since a critical part of his job is to promote voting you would think this wouldn’t even be an issue. We never had this type of problem with our last SOS. Way to go Mark, you once again prove that you are an idiot!
January 4th, 2008 at 1:14 PM
[...] AFTER MDE POST, SECRETARY OF STATE MARK RITCHIE’S OFFICE INCREASES… One of the examples I cited was that Secretary of Mark Ritchie’s "Election and Voting" Meeting and Event Calendar didn’t list the precinct… [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 2:18 PM
Nope, never a problem when Kiffmeyer was in office. . .
After Kiffmeyer left office, a routine Legislative Audit was conducted on the Secretary of State office for 2005 and 2006.[2] This audit concluded that the office hired 16 employees at a pay rate that exceeded their collective bargaining agreement without obtaining approval from the Department of Employee Relations resulting in total overpayment to employees of over $190,000. The explanation given in the audit was because the office mistakenly believed it retained this delegated authority. There were also instances of Kiffmeyer’s mileage reimbursement starting from her home in Big Lake, Minnesota instead of from her office, and lack of a clear “public purpose” explanation for some of Kiffmeyer’s travel.[3] Kiffmeyer resolved these issues with the office following the report. (from wikipedia)
January 4th, 2008 at 5:12 PM
After cock crows, sun rises.
The SoS site under Kiffmeyer had no front page mention of Caucuses in the first couple days of January, either. A smart oppo blogger, close to Kiffmeyer and with contacts in the SoS office, would know updates aren’t likely over the holidays.
I suppose Ritchie also got the brochure on caucuses written, designed and posted within a few hours of MDE’s post?
January 4th, 2008 at 8:39 PM
Point One:
If mileage reimbursement works the same for the secretary of state as it does for my company, which I assume it does, she could have claimed mileage from her home IF she first subtracted the mileage it would normally take her to drive from home to St. Paul and back. So, if she normally drives 75 miles one way, 150 total, and she was going to travel to Rochester, take the full mileage from Big Lake to Rochester and subtract the Big Lake mileage times two.
Point Two:
Printing out brochures doesn’t mean anything if the website doesn’t have easy access to the information. If he could have printed them out months in advance, wouldn’t you think he’d think “gee, maybe we should have this on the website, too?”
Point Three:
You’re not actually quoting Wikipedia, are you?
You’ve just lost all credibility. Maybe I’ll update Ritchie’s wikipedia entry myself and *voila* it becomes fact. Cool! Is there a wikipedia article declaring who won the 2008 presidential election yet? Maybe if we update it now, it will become true and we can forgo all the BS that is sure to come.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:42 PM
and yes, I realize I was refuting multiple posters, not just one. sorry!
January 4th, 2008 at 10:05 PM
At least Kiffmeyer didn’t try to suppress participation in the process by hiding information. She didn’t use her office to coerce money from people. She actually did an excellent job the liberals as usual went after her because she was effective. Ritchie is slim and a democrat (oops, didn’t mean to repeat myself) and we all know that they have much lower expectations for their own behavior then they do for conservatives.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:05 PM
Come to think of it, so do I.
January 5th, 2008 at 1:46 AM
“At least Kiffmeyer didn’t try to suppress participation in the process by hiding information”
Right, want to try that again? The cards that were mailed by the Secretary of State’s office to first time voters in 2006 (which were meant to tell them all they needed to know for election day) didn’t include all of the forms of identification that voters they could take to the polls to prove their identity. She also didn’t notify residential facilities and battered women’s shelters about a new law which helped the residents of the facilities vote.
Kiffmeyer opposed the new forms of ID and the provisions to help shelters in the Legislature, and then strangely her office didn’t inform people of the new rules. That’s what I’d call “hidding [sic] information.”
January 5th, 2008 at 8:50 AM
WhoKnows; Ritchie was keeping the information hidden from everyone. If you were taking personal responsibility and trying to figure out when the caucuses were it was nearly impossible. So far Ritchie has done NOTHING right, he is a complete idiot. By the way, I meant slime, not slim. Don’t under stand your quote in the last line of your entry, what’s up with that?
January 5th, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Which part don’t you understand. I was presuming by “hidding” you meant “hiding.” So if you didn’t understand my meaning, I’m saying her office didn’t inform people about new laws that coincidentally (or not) the Secretary didn’t like.
If it was [sic] that you didn’t understand, that a term used when one is quoting someone who misspelled something to show that the writer knows that it is not the way the word is spelled and they are quoting the original person verbatim. And that is the end of English class.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:10 PM
I spelt hiding correctly, re-read the post fool. Duh!
January 5th, 2008 at 4:59 PM
I can admit when I was wrong, and I was wrong about you misspelling “hiding.” Sorry.
January 6th, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Apology accepted. But Ritchie still sucks.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Kiffmeyer did have a lot of info out there a month or more before the caucuses (including a video on the 80+ cable stations across the state, which ran many, many times), plus the brochure and some press releases and letters to the editor.
With the caucus having been moved up a month earlier this year than in the past couple of decades at least, it seems it would be even more important for the SOS to promote the caucuses–or at least raising awareness of the earlier date–certainly should be doing that at least a month out.