Daily Journal Catches Up With folo

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Wednesday September 24th:

JACKSON - Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann based his recent argument for placing the special U.S. Senate race at the bottom of the ballot on precedent, but his office's research overlooked the last such race, which was at the top of the 1947 general election ballot.

Hosemann, the state's chief elections official, said this week he was unaware that the 1947 election in which John Stennis was elected to the U.S. Senate was a special election at the top of the ballot.

folo, Sunday, September 21st:

I almost headed this post “The Secretary of State forgot John Stennis.”

Recall that on Friday I posted the ballot for the state-wide election in 1947, in which there were both the state election and the special election for United States Senate, occuring after Bilbo’s death. John Stennis won that race. The ballot for the 1947 special election had the special election for Senate at the top, above the race for governor. Here’s the 1947 official ballot. I noted that the only other special election for Senate was in 1941.

In the court filings for the special election ballot case, Secretary of State Hosemann filed an affidavit that said he’d researched special elections from the past. It also said:

Mississippi has not had Special Election for a United States Senator since 1941. The Special Election on September 23, 1941 was not held during the General Election. Therefore, no precedent for the last sixty years exists. …

A few minutes with Wikipedia would have prevented this misunderstanding for anyone who remembered that John Stennis once occupied the seat currently in contest.

Nice work Tommy.