MDN Election Return Information

MDN's election information is from the data of Missouri's Secretary of State's office.

That information is what county election officials report to the Secretary of State's office starting on election night after there are no lines waiting to vote and the polls have closed.

The major additions added by MDN is the one-sentence description of ballot issues and projections of legislative candidate winners.

Before there are actual returns, MDN projections are made only when there is just one candidate for a legislative seat -- no third-party or writein candidates.

After we get returns, projections also will be based on the candidate with the lead after the minimum percentage of precincts you entered has been achieved.

Give careful thought about the minimum percentage of precincts reporting returns. Early returns can be very misleading.

For a few weeks after an election, that information is unofficial, until certified by local election officials and reported to the Secretary of State.

In chosing information to display, there are several options:

• Election: When you select an election, the options explained below will be displayed or hidden depending on what election you selected.

  For example, the option for congressional races will not be displayed since congressional races appear only on the statewide primary or general election.

  Also, since the number of races for a special election on relatively small, the All check box automatically will be selected for state legislative races and ballot issues -- even if there was not a ballot issue or a chamber race on the ballot.

• Issues: There are three types of statewide ballot issues placed on the ballot either by the legislature for by a successful initiative petititon.

  1. Constitutional Amendments will be labeled as Const. Amend. # with the number indicating when it was certified for the ballot.

  2. Changes or new laws will be labeled as Prop. [letter].

  3. A referendum placed on the ballot by an initiative petition to repeal a law passed by the legislature also will be labeled as a proposition followed by a letter.

• Statewide or Pres. Primary: Checking this box will display offices on the statewide ballot for primary and general elections. If you opened a presidential primary vote database, This option will be labeled Pres. Primary and will open the results of the presidential primary if checked.

• Congress, Senate, House: To avoid a long list, you can enter the specific district number(s) in which you are interested. Otherwise, just check the All to display every race in that category.

• Project the legislative party lineup change: This option will be displayed only for general elections. It will compair the current results with the party holding each seat prior to the selected general election.

  For vacant seats, the party will be based on the last time it was filled prior to the selected general election.

  On election night, you can set the minimum percentage of precincts reporting before a projection is displayed for a race.

• Election Night Options: On election night, there are two additional options available for a display;
  • County Precincts Reporting: This will display the percentage of precincts that reported results in each county and the city of St. Louis.

    If you're a political junky aware of the party-voting patterns in the counties, this may help better predict the ultimate outcome -- or discount early results.

    This option is available only when there are statewide races (general elections, statewide primaries or presidential primaries).

  • Auto update: If you enter a number minutes in this window, this automatically update date the page of results that have been obtained by MDN from the Secretary of State's results page.

    No update will be enable if you leave this entry blank. If you enter a number less than 5, it will be adjusted to every five minutes.

  Note: Only those options that might be available will be displayed when you select a specific election.

  For example, the Statewide nor Pres. Primary option for state candidates will not be displayed if you have selected a special election since no statewide offices (federal or state) are subject to a special election.

  The options for a special election will be displayed regardless whether there were any races in that category. For example, at the time this help page is being written, the June 2013 special election was the last time a Congressional race was on a special election ballot.

  Also, since there are so few races on special election ballots, all the All boxes will be checked. There's no problem if there were no candidates or issues in a category.

  Results Display

  One of the two command buttons at the top of the display is to print the results.

  A significant advantage of using this button is that will remove and shading used to better distinquish the lines of results.

  Another advantage is that it will save you paper and toner by eliminating the large-font size identifying each race.

  If you want the larger font, just mark with your cursor the race(s) you want to print, and then left click that should give you the option to print the material you have selected.

  History of Missouri Election Returns

  When I first covering Missouri government, covering election results was a nightmare to get results on election night.

  Missouri Network's newsdirector, Bob Priddy, established a swifter and more reliable system by creating the Missouri Elections Constorium that solicited funds for the organization to reimburse Secretary of State staff to provide to consortium election-night results they got from county officials which then were provided to the news organizations.

  But when Rebecca Cook became secretary of state, she decided providing election night returns was a state responsibility and set up web-based platform for reporting the results on election nights that continues to this day.

  If you're interested in the details, check out a column I wrote in 2020 about the history of election-night reporting and my own small role in helping fix a but in Cook's vote reporting system for the public.