Cochran foe challenges GOP Senate primary loss

Yahoo News ^ | Aug. 4, 2014 | Jack Elliot

[Rennes Templar]

The tea party-backed lawmaker defeated by U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi's Republican primary said Monday that he has formally challenged the election's outcome with the state GOP.

State Sen. Chris McDaniel filed the challenge with the Mississippi GOP state executive committee over Cochran's June 24 runoff victory, McDaniel attorney Mitch Tyner said during a news conference.

McDaniel will have to prove there were enough illegally cast votes to change the outcome or that the election was so sloppily handled its result is in doubt.

Mississippi voters don't register by party, but state law makes so-called crossover voting — casting a ballot in one party's primary and another party's runoff in the same cycle — a misdemeanor. Tyner said the campaign had found 3,500 instances of crossover votes, along with the 9,500 "irregular votes" and 2,275 "improperly cast" absentee ballots. It was not immediately clear what made the votes irregular, or how the absentee ballots may have been improperly cast.

Certified results show Cochran won by 7,667 votes, or 51 percent.

"They asked us to put up or shut up, and here we are with the evidence," McDaniel said.

McDaniel has called the June 24 runoff a "sham" and excoriated Cochran for seeking votes from "liberal Democrats." While McDaniel stops short of mentioning race, Mississippi is a state where Democrat is often synonymous with black. Cochran says there's nothing wrong with seeking support from Democrats and independents — it's something he's done for decades.

[Lurking Libertarian]

State Republican Executive Committee is a kangaroo court.

If [read: when] they turn him down, he can go to state court.

[freekitty]

I do too and I hope he is the nominee. Exactly, it’s time to expose the fraud for what it is.