I think there are two cases that I recall that are of interest here.
The first is Bush v Gore. I don't mention this one for its case merits (President vs Senator), other than that the Supreme Court overturned the Florida State Supreme Court's siding with Gore on his attempt to limit the recounts to only the few favorable counties to him. The largely (at the time) red state had a decidedly blue state Supreme Court, and the court overlooked precedent to do whatever it could to enable Gore. I fear that the same thing will happen in Mississippi. The law be damned, even when everyone is watching.
The second case is New Jersey Senate race between Robert Torricelli and Douglas Forrester. The SCOTUS refused to hear this case, probably because they were still stinging from the liberal rebuke to stepping into the Florida case two years earlier.
In the New Jersey case, Torricelli was losing badly in the polls because of his ongoing corruption investigations. When it became clear that he was going to lose the general election to a Republican (in a very blue state), the Democrat party stepped in and argued that there was a compelling state interest to have "a competitive election," meaning that they wanted to replace the losing Torricelli with the retired Frank Lautenberg. Never mind that there was a "competitive election" going on, but the Democrat candidate was losing the competition. To Democrats, it's only "competitive" when they're winning. The favorable court sided with Democrats and allowed Lautenberg to be substituted for Torricelli, even though ballots had already been sent out to overseas voters.
So now, in Mississippi, there are two issues at stake.
First is the indisputable level of documented (but ignored) voter fraud that took place. In today's political climate where the rule of politics trumps the rule of law, I can easily see the state supreme court ignoring the obvious fraudulent votes on some made up one-time-only excuse to protect Cochran.
Second is the idea of denying the people the candidate of their choice. McDaniel won the initial primary vote. He also won two terms as a state Senator. He's not a newcomer like New Jersey's Forrester. He has the credentials of a Lautenberg. The New Jersey precedent, although unintended, actually applies to McDaniel very strongly. A popular Lautenberg was allowed to replace a discredited and losing Torricelli after the deadline had passed. A popular McDaniel should be allowed to replace a discredited and losing Cochran, too.
-PJ
Those are great cases and a great analysis. The McDaniel people need to pick up on this.
Here’s a couple more that can be used to to overcome MS election laws restricting ballot access, both cases deciding in favor of ballot access against state laws to the contrary:
* US SUPREME COURT Norman v. Reed 1992
The right of citizens to create and develop new political parties derives from the First and Fourteenth Amendments and advances the constitutional interest of like-minded voters to gather in pursuit of common political ends, thus enlarging all voters’ opportunities to express their own political preferences. See, e.g., Illinois Elections Bd. v. Socialists Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 184 . Therefore, a State may limit new parties’ access to the ballot only to the extent that a sufficiently weighty state interest justifies the restriction. Any severe restriction must be narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance.
* US SUPREME COURT Anderson v. Celebrezze 1983
The Ohio filing deadline not only burdens the associational rights of independent voters and candidates, it also places a significant state-imposed restriction on a nationwide electoral process. A burden that falls unequally on independent candidates or on new or small political parties impinges, by its very nature, on associational choices protected by the First Amendment, and discriminates against those candidates and voters whose political preferences lie outside the existing political parties.