Friday, May 12, 2023

Statement on Secretary of State's Website Outage

JACKSON, Miss – On May 11, 2023, at approximately 11:00 a.m., the Secretary of State’s Office’s technology services experienced a sudden outage of its primary web server. The outage affected web applications that run on the sos.ms.gov website, causing them to become inaccessible and website viewers to receive various error messages when attempting to access them. Upon research, it was determined the cause of the crash began affecting SOS web applications prior to Thursday’s crash.


As of 8:00 a.m. Friday, May 12, 2023, all web applications on the Secretary of State’s website are fully operational and accessible per their usual functionality. Additionally, data integrity was fully maintained, and no information was lost.


A proper investigation by Secretary of State officials into the campaign finance filing of Lieutenant Governor candidate Chris McDaniel revealed a system error appears to be the cause of the one-page (excluding itemization) campaign finance report visible on the Secretary of State’s website prior to the web outage.


An itemized Report of Contributions and Disbursements for McDaniel is now visible on the Campaign Finance website.


Our office’s Technology Services Division is researching and identifying ways to mitigate and prevent future outages of the Secretary of State's website, including enhancing structure, functionality, and overall accessibility.