But ARE they “clearly illegal”? I know it’s bad form, underhanded, sneaky, despicable, etc. etc. etc., but is it in fact against the law? This is something I have yet to see clearly addressed. Is there a written law saying that you are only allowed to vote in one primary? If there isn’t, I don’t see how we can win. We won’t shame Cochran out of office. If he had any sense of shame he wouldn’t have resorted to this in the first place.
These are questionable votes, they don’t need to be “clearly illegal” to trigger a re-vote or at least a real investigation.
Ronin, where have you been? IT IS THE LAW IN MISSISSIPPI. You CANNOT vote in the runoff for the Republicans if you voted in the Democrat primary.
Yes. Details -> here.
Ok. Briefly.
In MS we have open primaries. You can vote in either one regardless of whether you are registered to that particular party or not.
On primary day you MUST CHOOSE which primary you want to vote in. You choose a table, either Republican or Democrat, when you enter your precinct. They check your ID, check to make sure you are registered and you sign a book. They then give you a voting card for the voting machines. Once there, you insert the card you got and ONLY the candidates in THAT primary appear on the screen. You select your choice(s), cast your ballot, eject the card, return it to the appropriate table and go home.
You can NOT then turn around and vote at the OTHER table. You have ALREADY VOTED. You can NOT vote TWICE.
Now, IF one of the parties has a run off, you can of course vote in that as well. You can NOT vote in the primary runoff of the party that you did NOT vote in on the original primary election day.
If you DO so you have in effect voted TWICE. This is ILLEGAL.
In the run off they will take the registration book from the OPPOSITE party’s primary and use THAT to determine if you have already voted in the OTHER party’s primary and are therefore INeligible to vote in the runoff. It was THIS practice that GOP bigs supposedly told the precinct workers in majority dem precincts to avoid. They then had no way to determine who was eligible to vote and who wasn’t, easily.
If you voted in the democrat primary, and there is documented evidence of this when you registered at that particular table, and your name/ID were subsequently used to vote at the OTHER primary runoff you have broken the law.
The RACE baiting the other party’s supporters is another topic altogether. Not illegal in open primary states, but tends to paint the incumbent into a corner they won’t get out of. They aren’t going to get the primary opponent’s supporters votes and the opposing party’s supporters are unlikely to vote outside their party in the general election.
Hope this makes sense.
It is the law in Mississippi that if you vote as a Dem in the Primary you cannot vote in a GOP runoff election.
It would be the same rule for a Republican who voted in the GOP primary. If there had been a Dem runoff he would not be able to vote in it.
It is illegal to vote in the Democrat primary and then vote in the Republican one in Mississippi.