Did you win a delegate slot on March 1? Are you sure the votes were counted correctly? Because we’re not.

At LIA this cycle, we offered delegate candidates the opportunity to post an article (for free!) that introduced themselves to the community and asked for votes for themselves and their candidate. Multiple times, we reminded everyone that, according to Democratic Party rules, you had to follow these rules when voting:

Choose a presidential candidate (or uncommitted)

Vote ONLY for the delegates pledged to that candidate – or uncommitted delegates if you voted for “Uncommitted.”

According to election officials at the state and local level, if you, for instance, voted for Hillary Clinton for president and then voted for 2 “Male” delegates pledged to Clinton and one “Female” Clinton delegate candidate AND a female Bernie Sanders delegate, then the Bernie Sanders delegate vote wouldn’t count.

After all, that’s what the ballot itself says – both for Republicans and Democrats:

In the past, here’s how this has worked in the Democratic primary. It’s nothing new:

Vote for Candidate A at the top of the ticket.

Vote for UP TO 4 male and 4 female delegates who were “pledged” to vote for that candidate at the convention.

If you voted for someone pledged to another candidate, your vote for that person wouldn’t count.

Here’s where the confusion happened this year. People were told two different stories:

If you vote for Candidate A and a delegate for Candidate B, the machine will spit out your vote and you have to get another ballot. If you vote for Candidate A and a delegate for Candidate B, your vote for the candidate at the top of the ticket counts, but the delegate vote for Candidate B does not.

However, even with the two different instructions, the outcome was the same. You had to vote for delegates pledged to the candidate you voted for. Or did you?

Now, looking at the voting results published by the state, it appears that neither is true.

Yes campers… the vote totals are hosed up. And not just on the Democratic side, but the Republican totals as well.

Let’s look at some sample results in Madison County and Marshall County. I’m focusing on Martin O’Malley because he’s out of the race and had few votes and few delegates pledged. The top line total is correct, but I didn’t include all the delegates running, just a sample.

Madison County Results (PDF)

Martin O’Malley votes for president: 72 votes

Martin O’Malley delegate votes – Male:

Parker Griffith: 3129 votes

William Krause: 3114 votes

Marshall County Results:

Martin O’Malley votes for president: 8 votes

Martin O’Malley delegate votes – Male:

Craig Ford – 152 votes

Think that’s funny Republicans? You have the same problem:

In Madison County, Jeb Bush got 206 votes total for president.

But in “Bush Delegates, Place 10” he got a lot more votes than that!

It’s the same for other Republican candidates too.

What the heck is going on here?

In Madison County, “technical issues” prevented the results from being posted shortly after the polls closed at 7pm. It was hours later. When asked about the delay, Probate Judge Tommy Ragland didn’t respond:

We knew early on a technical issue prevented the voting machines from posting the results directly. What we now know is election officials held all results until the issue was resolved to make sure all results were accurate. The Madison County probate judge still isn’t saying what caused the technical problems.

Except that the totals still don’t appear to be correct!

We knew early on a technical issue prevented the voting machines from posting the results directly. What we now know is election officials held all results until the issue was resolved to make sure all results were accurate.

The Madison County probate judge still isn’t saying what caused the technical problems.

If we can’t feel comfortable with the votes for delegate races in the primary, how can we feel confident that our votes for any race are being tabulated correctly in November?

We’re going to continue to cover this story, but right now… everyone who ran as a convention delegate – whether Democratic or Republican – needs to be asking the question: How were the votes counted and was it done according to the rules?

UPDATE: As Zane points out in the comments, some party leaders knew about this issue in advance of the election. I missed this news story because I was busy doing GOTV on Monday, not watching the news.

But seriously, guys?

In fact, WHNT News 19 has learned the delegate vote may not even follow party rules. For example, the ballot asks you to only vote for delegates for the candidate you’re supporting, but officials tell us the voting machines aren’t sophisticated enough to throw out votes that don’t follow that rule.

That is a total abdication of responsibility. Are we to believe that nobody in this state is smart enough to program software?