Meg Whitman Not Stepping Down Due To The California Secretary of State's Computers Crashing

Although many news networks have declared that Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina lost the election, they're not conceding. I've picked up on a rumor that former Governor Pete Wilson stated at the Whitman campaign event in Los Angeles that the California Secretary Of State’s computer reportedly crashed and as a result, the media are getting all their numbers from each other. Therefore, the two female Republican candidates are not stepping down.

I've tried to contact my sources in the Whitman campaign and haven't recieved any word back. However, it does appear that the computers at the California Secretary's Office did crash:

The normal tension of election night was ratcheted up Tuesday when the Secretary of State’s website showing election returns was overloaded with traffic, so that many people were having trouble calling up election results even after 10 p.m.

The state agency, which has notoriously had problems with its computers, put up an alternative posting of all election results while it tried to work out the problems, according to spokeswoman Nicole Winger.

The state was using a "cloud computing" system in which at least 50 servers outside the Secretary of State’s office were being used to manage the heavy traffic.

"The traffic to the website has been exponentially higher than what was even projected" by the state’s IT experts, she said. "The traffic basically blew up the cloud." She said web traffic at the Secretary of State’s site was higher than experienced during the last presidential election.

Former Rep. Gov. Pete Wilson cited the "crash" of the Secretary of State’s computer site as one reason results were slow in coming in the governor’s race.

Having the computers crash in a very close race is a big deal. It makes sense for these women not to concede. While the media can declare the news of who won the race, it is the Secretary of State who certifies the actual winner of the race. Obviously, election lawyers for Meg and Carly will be busy now. 

Jerry Brown has stated that the results of the election is "good enough for government work." We'll have to see how good the government computers are. But it wouldn't surprise me if the California government has crappy computers. That's the government for you. Which is good enough for Jerry Brown, obviously. 

I will keep you posted on any developments if I can.