NATCHEZ — A report released by the Secretary of State’s Office Tuesday says the Democratic process has not been followed in Wilkinson County.

The report catalogs violations that took place during the June special Democratic primary.

Due to prior litigation and allegations of voter fraud from the first primary, 13 secretary of state officials were on hand during the redo to monitor the process.

Click on the following links to download copies of the Secretary of State’s Report on the Wilkinson County Special Elections:

Democratic Primary Report.

Special Election Report.

What they found were multiple infractions and improprieties conducted by poll workers and even elected officials, the report says.

Poll workers are allowed to give assistance to people who are too physically impaired to vote independently. However, the findings read that many voters were helped when they clearly did not need assistance nor did they ask for it.

In one precinct, it was determined that approximately half to nearly 75 percent of the voters were given undue assistance.

According to the findings, in that same precinct, an elected county official helped approximately 50 voters, all of which did not ask for assistance.

“(The official) was actually touching the screen for the voters,” the report states.

Said official also drove voters to the precinct and even helped voters not on the voter roll fill out affidavit ballots.

Other incidences include a candidate sitting in a voter’s car and conversing while the voter attempted to cast a curbside ballot, highly outdated and inaccurate voter rolls and inaccurately followed procedures in handling affidavit votes.

The report also makes claims against former Circuit Clerk Mon Cree Allen.

“The circuit clerk, who was a candidate in this election, or his deputy, took actions that ultimately led to the disenfranchisement of voters,” the findings report. “Whether those actions were intentional or negligent, they inevitably lead to the perception of impropriety.”

The report concludes by stating that essentially, the democratic process was not executed.

“On the whole, based on the observations of our personnel, it is difficult to express confidence that the will of the people in Wilkinson County was accurately determined or measured by the results of the Special Democratic Primary Election on June 24, 2008,” the report stated.

Again, in the special general election, voter assistance was improper, there were irregularities involving absentee and affidavit balloting. In general though, the findings show that problems in the general election were milder than the primary.

Mississippi Secretary of State Office’s Communications Director Pamela Weaver said it’s the secretary of state office’s duty to be a watchdog over elections and making sure they are running legally.

“This is what we’ve seen,” she said of the unscrupulous actions in Wilkinson County. “And we’re doing all that we can to stop it.”

She said the issuance of the report to the public is to alert people that elections like these do happen.

“We know it’s a problem and we know that it happens and that’s one of the reasons we wanted to issue the report,” Weaver said. “We wanted the public to be aware that their vote is being stolen in instances like these and it’s a travesty.”

Any punitive measures cannot come from the secretary’s office.

“What we do is hand over our findings and basically what we’ve done is (send the findings) to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District and the attorney general’s office,” she said.