Cochran Campaign Manager Busted in Illegal Vote Buying Operation

Gotnews ^ | 6/30/2014 | Charles C. Johnson and Joel S. Gilbert

[Viennacon]

A black reverend stiffed by the Cochran campaign has exposed an alleged criminal conspiracy by Cochran staffers to commit massive voter fraud ahead of Tuesday's controversial U.S. Senate Republican runoff election in Mississippi.

Reverend Stevie Fielder, associate pastor at historic First Union Missionary Baptist Church and former official at Meridian's redevelopment agency, says he delivered "hundreds or even thousands," of blacks to the polls after being offer money and being assured by a Cochran campaign operative that Chris McDaniel was a racist. "They [the Cochran campaign] told me to offer blacks fifteen dollars each and to vote for Thad."

It is illegal under several provisions of Mississippi law and federal law for campaign officials to bribe voters with cash and punishable up to five years in jail. (MS Code 97-13-1; MS Code 97-13-3 (2013) (Federal Code 18 U.S.C. 597, U.S.C. 1973i(c)) Voter fraud schemes are not unusual for Mississippi. In 1999 Mississippi's attorney general reported massive voter fraud allegations throughout the Palmetto state. In 2011, a Mississippi NAACP leader was sent to prison for voter fraud, according to the Daily Caller.

It would seem that laws were broken here, too. At the direction of the Cochran campaign, Reverend Fielder went "door to door, different places, mostly impoverished neighborhoods, to the housing authorities and stuff like that," telling fellow blacks that McDaniel was a racist and promising them $15 per vote. "They sold me on the fact that he was a racist and that the right thing to do was to keep him out of office," Fielder says.

Text messages released to Got News and a recorded interview with Reverend Fielder confirmed that Saleem Baird, a staffer with the Cochran campaign and current legislative aide to U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, and Cochran campaign manager, Kirk Sims, were involved in a $15 per vote cash bribery scheme to target members of the black community.

"They said they needed black votes," said the Reverend Fielder on the phone. He says Baird told him to put "give the fifteen dollars in each envelope to people as they go in and vote. You know, not right outside of the polling place but he would actually recruit people with the $15 dollars and they would go in and vote." Fielder said he received thousands of dollars in envelopes from Baird and distributed them accordingly. Fielder also says he went to the campaign office on another occasion to pick up $300 in cash and was among a room full of people who were doing the same thing he was.

Excerpt, read more at gotnews.com

[Windflier]

But we have to vote GOP no matter what right?

Come on, Norm. You know that any Repuke is better than a stinking Commie Dem -- don't you?

Party unity above all else, dude.

[ElkGroveDan]

There’s something odd about this web site...

[Charles Martel]

Corruption aside, is this man simply too dumb/senile to be involved in politics on either side?

The sad part is that Cochran had Rove, Barbour and the collective brain trust of the GOPe helping him. Can't wait to hear how the jowled ones try to spin this.

[sweetiepiezer]

ping

[tennmountainman]

For those who have not heard, Pete Perry was arrested for DUI
in MS. He is the Hinds County Hack.

[RummyChick]

It’s a new effort.

Do a little digging if you mistrust.

This scandal is blown open.

[RummyChick]

Recently?

Dems are coming down hard on him.

[Syncro]

Good find, thanks R-Chick

Here's an excerpt:

BOMBSHELL: Mississippi Democrat Party Officials Admit Team Cochran Wanted Help Stealing the Election

Thad Cochran poster boy for everything wrong with the corrupt Republican Party. A Republican Party more interested in holding on to power, and corrupt business deals, than representing the American people.

We watched them steal this election

~ Gregg Phillips, a longtime Mississippi GOP operative who was a top aide to former conservative GOP Governor Kirk Fordice

By Gary P Jackson

I find this simply incredible.

Pete Perry, is a Cochran ally who serves as the Hinds County GOP chair. This matters because:

[emphasis mine]

To make matters even more interesting, Democrats in Hinds County are accusing Cochran’s Hinds County Republicans of illegal activity.

In an interview with Breitbart News on Thursday, Claude McInnis–the Hinds County Democrats’ top official–said that Perry asked Democrats to help him “break the law” by working together to accept Democratic voters who voted in the June 3 Democratic primary and in Tuesday’s GOP runoff.

Charging that Perry “has never ran a legal election in this state” because “he was never qualified by the Secretary of State’s office,” McInnis alleged that Perry asked him and county Democrats not to share records of who voted in each primary on June 3. The practice–called “switching the books“–is where, heading into a runoff, Democrats and Republicans swap poll books that list which voters voted in the respective parties’ recent primaries.

To start a primary, since Mississippi doesn’t technically have party registration, Democrats and Republicans each begin with their own lists of all registered voters. As voters cast ballots, poll workers write “VOTED” next to the names of people who vote in their primaries. If the process heads to a runoff in either or both parties’ primaries, the Democrats switch their books with Republicans and vice versa so poll workers in the runoffs can ensure nobody who voted in the Democratic primary votes in the GOP runoff and vice versa.

“The Democrats get the Republican book and the Republicans get the Democrat book to protect against crossover voting,” McInnis said. “In Mississippi and a lot of other states, if you voted in the Republican primary, you must only vote in the Republican runoff; you can’t switch.“

McInnis alleged in an interview with Breitbart News that Connie Cochran, Sen. Cochran’s sister-in-law and the Perry and Hinds County election commissioner, asked local Democrats not to switch the poll books.

“In the state of Mississippi, you have to take steps to prevent crossover voting,” McInnis said. “If you voted Democrat in the Democratic primary, you can’t vote in the Republican runoff. The way we protect that is we switch the poll books. Pete Perry and Connie Cochran, who’s the chair of the election commission, called us and asked us not to switch the books–which is a clear violation of the law.”

McInnis told Breitbart News he personally witnessed at least one Hinds County precinct–Precinct 16–where the books had not been switched during the runoff day. “I went out to a precinct to make sure the laws were being followed, and I got there at about 4 o’clock p.m.,” McInnis said. “They had not switched the books, under the influence of the young Republican and Democratic workers there. I demanded that they switch these books immediately. The Democratic poll manager there switched the books at 4 o’clock that evening.”

McInnis said he thinks Perry engaged in this practice throughout the entire county, but he can’t be sure because Democrats were only allowed inside 15 of the county’s 109 precincts on election day. Two Democrat candidates for the U.S. House third congressional district in Mississippi headed to a runoff, and while Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) represents most of Hinds County, the third congressional district has 15 precincts inside Hinds County.

“I think this was county-wide, but we only had 15 precincts because we only had a small runoff in a very small part of the county; we only had 15 precincts in the eastern part of the county,” McInnis said. “The rest of the county had only the Republican runoff, so we had no authority to go to Republican polling places and do anything about it. But in the places we could, we did–because we did not want to be accused of anything with the Republican Party.“

When asked how Perry could have succeeded in not switching the books–since he and other Democrats refused to cooperate with his request on the grounds that they believed it was illegal–McInnis replied that he worked with Sen. Cochran’s sister-in-law–the election commissioner in Hinds County–to get the job done. “Connie Cochran is the election commissioner,” McInnis said.

“I can’t tell you if he did this at all the precincts, but I can tell you at the precincts I went to, they didn’t switch the books. I know one woman at one precinct where she had voted in the Democratic primary, but she also was allowed to vote in the Republican runoff. It happened at more than one precinct.“

McInnis and his fellow Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee member, Chairwoman Jacqueline Amos-Norris, provided Breitbart News with email evidence that Perry and Connie Cochran were trying to not “switch the books” on runoff day. “Connie, unless I send you something in writing, it does not exist,” Norris wrote to Connie Cochran in the email dated June 18, six days before the runoff. “Claude informed me of what Pete said to you about the Poll Books and that’s not true and not legal. If I need to come down, please let me know.”

What supposedly happened, according to McInnis and Norris, is that Perry told Connie Cochran that McInnis agreed to not switch the books. McInnis and Norris both said that isn’t and wasn’t true, which was why Norris sent that email to Connie Cochran to inform her that it was not true.

“She stated that she told him it wasn’t going to happen, and that was the end of it,” Norris told Breitbart News.

More at hotlink in title.

This stuff if going viral

[RKBA Democrat]

“$15? what a rip-off, cheapo white man”

That’s probably about the norm.

This is going to get verrrry interesting. Looks like the rats have decided to rat out the bigger catch.

[RummyChick]

I was too lazy to post it like you did.

There is a lot of damning info in it.

[Norm Lenhart]

My faith wavered there a second, but of course you are correct.

It is imperative we continue electing our problems so we can puff out our chests and complain about what we ourselves elected. No matter what.

[Syncro]

It’s new maybe got kinks.

CCJ is the real deal.

[tennmountainman]

This past weekend.

[Qbert]

“...Under MS Code § 23-15-561 (2013) which is a subsection of the Article on the Conduct of Elections, it is unlawful for both the Cochran campaign or outside supporters to “publicly or privately put up or in any way offer any prize, cash award or other item of value to be raffled, drawn for, played for or contested for in order to encourage persons to vote or to refrain from voting in any election.”...

(3) Any candidate who shall violate the provisions of subsection (1) of this section shall, upon conviction thereof, in addition to the fine prescribed above, be punished by:
(a) Disqualification as a candidate in the race for the elective office; or
(b) Removal from the elective office, if the offender has been elected thereto.

http://www.redstate.com/2014/06/30/breaking-new-allegations-point-cochran-campaign-mississippi-senate-vote-buying-scandal/

[RitaOK]

MS Code 23-561-2013!!! DONE now, baby!

[ElkGroveDan]

I don’t necessarily distrust the content per-se, but I need something more credible than an anonymous Go-Daddy page with one news story if I am going to share this with people who can ratchet it up to the next level.

[JRandomFreeper]

It sure is getting difficult for the criminals to control the narrative with the internet around.

/johnny

[tennmountainman]

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/dailyledes/2014/06/29/pete-perry-dui-arrest/11705585/

Article about Pete Perry, Hinds County Fraud Chairman.
Arrested for DUI.

[Mygirlsmom]

The only thing I see is that the emails say they are from "SALEEN O BAIRD" on the top. The email address saleem@thadforms.com is correct, however.