BUT - Mississippi prohibits write in candidates, doesn’t it?
No they don’t prohibit write-in candidates. They prohibit losing primary candidates from running as write-ins but federal case law does not support these sore loser with respect to someone like McDaniel.
When a person runs for federal office, then that person has the federal body of law behind them. State law is not important. But in most cases state law conforms with federal law. When it does not conform, then federal courts can choose to ‘scrutinize’ the state laws in question and they rule on a case-by-case basis.
For example, Daffy Duck and Mickey Mouse are not allowed to run as write-ins. Even if there are real people named this way they are not established political players that represent large groups of voters.
An established political player like Chris McDaniel who represents hundreds of thousands of voters also will not be allowed to run as a write-in or to ignore a deadline for filing as an independent IF all the election laws in MS are otherwise constitutional. However, it is not constitutional for a candidate to cheat and violate law and then not be removed because the law fails to allow the opponent to run as a write-in or as an independent. That would make the state complicit in aiding and abetting the law violators.
READ - For example, say a black citizen files to run for a federal office. Suppose that a state election worker slow walks the filing application and fails to enter it for processing until after the filing deadline. Suppose later that someone close to the election workers discovers the reason for the late application is because the election worker does not like blacks. This is a clear violation of state and federal law. A federal court is not going to allow the state elections office to foreclose on the black citizen’s right to run for office by upholding the state law that the filing was late. An immediate (likely same day) injunction order will be issued ordering the state election office to accept the filing of the candidate.
The same can happen with Chris McDaniel if his election challenge gets stumped by the Barbour people slow-walking the ballots to the office where they can be examined. They are guilty of violating law by paying bribes to buy votes. That’s a fact. It’s not even questionable. There are also clear violations of federal law where election materials did not have federally mandated information on them. These clear violations point to a slam dunk federal injunction against the MS election office from restricting ballot access to the McDaniel campaign.