Thread: Lawsuit challenges loss to Sen. Cochran in Miss.

Lawsuit challenges loss to Sen. Cochran in Miss.

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS and JEFF AMY 9 minutes ago

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A tea party-backed candidate asked a Mississippi court on Thursday to declare him the winner of the June 24 Republican runoff against incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran or order a new election.

State Sen. Chris McDaniel sued Thursday in state court in his own home of Jones County. The Mississippi Supreme Court will appoint a special judge to handle the case, though it would be unprecedented for a court to order a do-over of a statewide election.

Cochran's campaign and the Republicans' national Senate office have said they are already focused on Cochran's bid for re-election in November against Democratic former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers and Reform Party candidate Shawn O'Hara.

Certified results of the June 24 runoff show Cochran defeated McDaniel by 7,667 votes. But McDaniel says his campaign found thousands of irregularities, including about 3,500 people who voted in the June 3 Democratic primary and June 24 runoff. Mississippi voters don't register by party, but such crossover voting is prohibited.

McDaniel has criticized Cochran for reaching out to black voters who traditionally support Democrats. Turnout increased from the primary to the runoff, and Cochran fared well in many majority-black precincts.

McDaniel campaign representatives spent weeks examining ballot boxes and other voting records. McDaniel said they found about 9,500 "irregular" votes and 2,275 "improperly cast" absentee ballots.

McDaniel began his challenge with a complaint to the Mississippi Republican Party executive committee on Aug. 4, asking the group to declare him the winner over Cochran.

State GOP chairman Joe Nosef said Aug. 6 that the committee would not consider the challenge because it did not have time to thoroughly examine the information McDaniel provided about alleged voting irregularities. Thursday marked the deadline to file a lawsuit challenging his loss.

State law says the general-election sample ballot must be given to local election officials by Sept. 10, which is 55 days before the Nov. 4 general election. While a court could order a new primary even after the general election, McDaniel campaign attorney Mitch Tyner has said he wants the dispute over the primary resolved in time to keep the general election on track.

http://news.yahoo.com/lawsuit-challe...-election.html

Patriots this travesty can not be allowed to go unpunished. If we do not stop it (by whatever means possible) then there it will be used over and over against conservatives in the future. Screw the Republicrap Party. Write in Chris McDaniel in the November general election. DON'T STAY HOME OR VOTE DEMOCRAT BECAUSE THE NEWS MEDIA WILL SPIN THAT AS SOME MYSTERIIOUS VOTER APATHY OR EVEN THAT COCAROACH (Cochran) was not liberal enough.
In the general election make your anger unequivocal, write in Chris McDaniel

"Write in candidates seldom win."

Write-in candidate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A write-in candidate is a candidate in an election whose name does not appear on the ballot, but for whom voters may vote nonetheless by writing in the person's name. The system is almost totally confined to elections in the United States. Some U.S. states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker with a write-in candidate's name on it to the ballot in lieu of actually writing in the candidate's name.

Write-in candidacies are sometimes a result of a candidate being legally or procedurally ineligible to run under his or her own name or party; Write-in candidacies may be permitted where term limits bar an incumbent candidate from being officially nominated for, or being listed on the ballot for, re-election. In some cases, write-in campaigns have been organized to support a candidate who is not personally involved in running; this may be a form of draft campaign.

Write-in candidates rarely win, and votes are often cast for ineligible people or fictional characters. Some jurisdictions require write-in candidates be registered as official candidates before the election.^[1]

This is standard in elections with a large pool of potential candidates, as there may be multiple candidates with the same name that could be written in.

Many U.S. states and municipalities allow for write-in votes in a partisan primary election where no candidate is listed on the ballot to have the same functional effect as nominating petitions: for example, if there are no Reform Party members on the ballot for state general assembly and a candidate receives more than 200 write-in votes when the primary election is held (or the other number of signatures that were required for ballot access), the candidate will be placed on the ballot on that ballot line for the general election. In most places, this provision is in place for non-partisan elections as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write-in_candidate

1. Here's why McDaniel can't mount a November challenge
   
   www.clarionledger.com/...november.../11353221/
   
   The Clarion‑Ledger
   Jun 25, 2014 - Third-party challenge, write-in campaign not allowed by state election law. ... Mississippi has qualifying deadlines for all elections ... Candidates can either qualify as a Democrat or Republican via the appropriate state party or as an ...While you can write-in votes in Mississippi, they don't really count.

8/29/2014

http://www.alipac.us/f9/judge-dismis...ictory-310202/