Thread: Mississippi Republican Party declares Cochran winner in Senate primary

Mississippi Republican Party declares Cochran winner in Senate primary

By Jonathan Kaminsky 3 hours ago

.

View photo

Republican U.S. Senator Thad Cochran addresses supporters during an election night celebration after …

Related Stories

• Miss. GOP certifies Cochran victory over McDaniel
• Associated Press
• Mississippi U.S. Senate candidate vows to fight defeat
• Reuters
• Ted Cruz speaks out as Mississippi's Republican civil war spreads
• Christian Science Monitor
• Senator Cochran defeats Tea Party rival in Mississippi Republican runoff
• Reuters
• Change in Mississippi voting rules seen unlikely despite Tea Party anger
• Reuters

(Reuters) - The Mississippi Republican Party has certified election results naming incumbent Thad Cochran the winner of a U.S. Senate primary runoff that his Tea Party-backed challenger contends was tainted by illegal voting by Democrats.

Cochran defeated state Senator Chris McDaniel by 7,667 votes in the June 24 runoff, nearly 1,000 more than the six-term incumbent's unofficial margin of victory reported on election night, according to certified results released late on Monday by the state Republican Party.

Representatives from both campaigns sorted through voting records in all 82 Mississippi counties on Monday.

The party certification of the election left McDaniel weighing a possible challenge. His campaign said it had found thousands of cases of voters casting ballots in the Democratic primary and then in the Republican runoff, which is against election rules.

It has also highlighted unsubstantiated allegations that some Democrats - many of whom are black - were paid to vote for Cochran.

"We have a duty to look into those allegations to make sure the integrity of the process is upheld," said Michael Watson, a Republican state senator and legal adviser to the McDaniel campaign.

The Cochran campaign has dismissed allegations of vote buying on its part as false, but acknowledged on Tuesday it had erroneously listed in federal election filings roughly $53,000 in get-out-the vote payouts to dozens of workers as reimbursement to a single campaign staffer.

The Cochran campaign has also characterized allegations of improper voting as heavily overstated. It said in a statement that an initial review had turned up just over 200 questionable votes and 24 ineligible crossover votes.

Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, another favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, called on Monday for an official investigation into the runoff.

If McDaniel chooses to fight the results, he must first challenge them with the state Republican Party, said Pamela Weaver, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Secretary of State's Office. If the party does not grant him a new election, he can take his case to state court, she said.

A court challenge by McDaniel would likely face an uphill battle, said Matthew Steffey, an election law expert at the Mississippi College School of Law.

http://news.yahoo.com/mississippi-re...221328701.html

Another display or the good ol' boys club? Get elected, just like justices, got an office for life?

Does'nt seem to be the way I remember it was to be/

The Senate Conservatives Fund sent $70,000 to McDaniel to challenge Mississippi runoff election results

The group has raised more than $90,000 in the past few days

By Chris Moody, Yahoo News 5 hours ago Yahoo News

.View photo

Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel delivers a concession speech in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in this June 24, 2014 file photo. McDaniel, who lost Mississippi's Republican U.S. Senate primary last week, took an initial step on July 3, 2014 toward challenging its outcome, serving papers to the son of his opponent. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman/Files

Related Stories

• Mississippi U.S. Senate candidate vows to fight defeat Reuters
• Mississippi Republican Party declares Cochran winner in Senate primary Reuters
• Senator Cochran defeats Tea Party rival in Mississippi Republican runoff Reuters
• Tea party groups are apoplectic over how Cochran won in Mississippi Yahoo News
• Chris McDaniel Offers Reward For Proof Of Voter Fraud Huffington Post

The Senate Conservatives Fund on Tuesday wired $70,000 to Chris McDaniel’s legal fund to investigate alleged voter fraud in last month’s election between McDaniel and Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, Yahoo News has learned.

Cochran narrowly defeated McDaniel, a tea party-backed candidate who challenged the six-term senator from the right, in a June 24 runoff election after he rallied last-minute support from black Democrats in the state. In Mississippi, voters can cross party lines to vote in primaries as long as they don’t vote in their own party’s contests as well.

McDaniel has refused to concede the race, alleging that Cochran “stole the election” by relying on voters who already participated in the Mississippi Democratic primary, held on June 3. His campaign opened an Election Challenge Fund to pay for a possible legal challenge and has offered a $1,000 reward to anyone with knowledge of voter fraud.

The SCF, a group that supports conservative congressional candidates,launched a fundraising drive over the weekend to help his legal challenge and wired a majority of the funds Tuesday, SCF’s new president, Ken Cuccinnelli, told Yahoo News. The group, which originally said it had no plans to participate in a challenge, has raised more than $90,000 in the past few days and plans to send the rest of the money early next week. During the campaign, the group spent $1.3 million in support of McDaniel, fueling a heated battle between the tea party and official party groups aligned with Cochran.

“Funds will be used to pay the expenses of the lawyers overseeing poll book inspections, the preparation of the evidence to ascertain if an appeal is warranted, and the legal expenses if a court challenge is made,” the SCF fundraising plea read. Because the fund is a separate account from the campaign funds, McDaniel supporters are allowed to donate up to $2,600 to the fund even if they already maxed out donations to his campaign.

Attorneys representing McDaniel’s campaign have expressed confidence in their effort to challenge the results in court and said their investigation should result in another runoff election. The court challenge will set McDaniel on another uphill battle against the Republican establishment in which he will be outmanned and outraised against the party, which officially certified the results of the election Monday.

http://news.yahoo.com/the-senate-con...170909121.html