Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) said Friday that his campaign and his supporters have found “over 8,300 questionable ballots cast” in the runoff election for U.S. Senate, which Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) won.
“For the last two weeks, more than two hundred volunteers for from all over Mississippi have worked tirelessly in an effort to gain access to election records in order to ensure the integrity of the primary process in Mississippi,” McDaniel said in a statement on Friday. “We have found over 8,300 questionable ballots cast, many of which were unquestionably cast by voters ineligible to participate in the June 24th runoff election.”
The statement is the latest claim by the McDaniel campaign about the evidence it has been hoping to find over the runoff election. Since the runoff, McDaniel and his supporters have accused Cochran, who McDaniel challenged, of foul play and also claimed the runoff was rife with voter fraud. Cochran reached out to African Americans and Democrats to win the runoff.
Earlier in the week McDaniel’s lawyer said the campaign had found proof that “several thousand” ineligible voters cast their ballot in the runoff. Cochran won the runoff by 7,667 votes. McDaniel’s campaign is hoping to prove that Cochran was only declared the winner through counting faulty votes and there should be a new election.
McDaniel, in the Friday statement, also called on the Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann (R) to allow McDaniel’s campaign access to voting records which McDaniel said they have not had access to yet.
“As a result of the misleading information coming from the Secretary of State’s office, many Clerks were confused about proper disclosure of election materials to the candidates,” McDaniel said. “This has forced the Clerks and my team to needlessly expend resources on mandamus requests for materials that the statutes clearly say I am entitled to review.”
I just love watching a good train wreck.
Corner Stone
It’s pronounced gor-Don.
Corner Stone
“Hard drives and Hard asses”
“Please keep it up”
I can’t be the only one here reading this blog butt naked.
Cassidy
MattF
Looks like Cochrane-hatred has become part of the TP alternate universe. The Wingularity has definitely collapsed past the Schwartzchild radius.
Iowa Old Lady
I definitely think the Rs need to stage another runoff. It would only be fair!
Josie
@Iowa Old Lady: It would also be very entertaining. Something to fill the dog days of August.
MattF
@Corner Stone: Not counting bunny slippers?
Baud
McDaniels should sue under the Voting Rights Act.
Oh…
Hunter Gathers
The GOP could solve this very entertaining clusterfuck if they just went ahead and gave McDainiel his Wingnut Welfare check. He’s going to get one anyway, so why wait?
gbear
This guy reminds me of the contractor that I’m dealing with on a work construction project. I can’t fucking wait until the project is finished, if it does get finished. I’m starting to hate this project.
David Koch
I have in my hand a list of 57 communists in the state department!
gbear
I have written on my hand a list of 57 socia!istic facsists in the state department! – Sarah Palin.
WereBear
@David Koch: Yeah, and nobody asked to see the list.
I guess some things haven’t changed a bit.
SiubhanDuinne
@David Koch:
Is that Angela Lansbury?
Josie
@SiubhanDuinne: It is her. It might be from the movie The Manchurian Candidate.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@David Koch: Why not go with the real thing? “I have here in my hand a list of 205 [State Department employees] that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.” It even has West Virginia in it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Josie:
I haven’t seen that movie for a long time, but that was also my thought. Don’t remember that particular image, though.
(Note to self: find opportunity soonest to rewatch The Manchurian Candidate. What a terrific film that was!)
burnspbesq
You do realize, I presume, that if this jackalope is able to overturn the result of the runoff he is almost certain to win the general election.
The idea of nostalgia for Thad Cochran is admittedly hard to get one’s arms around, but by March 2015 it could be a thing.
SiubhanDuinne
@gbear:
Mnemosyne
Sorry, wrong thread — moving this comment to the appropriate one.
MikeJ
I don’t understand why states are involved in primaries anyway. States don’t spend millions of dollars helping the Rotary Club decide who is going to be its public spokesperson. Why are they helping Republicans and Democrats, both of whom should be using their own resources to choose their leaders?
Violet
@Hunter Gathers:
At some point they’ll be down to True Believers and those guys won’t take Wingnut Welfare. They want to win and enact all their crazy ideas. Don’t know if McDaniel is one of those but he could be. Under all the grift is True Believer Crazy.
Little Boots
republican train wrecks are seriously the best.
Howard Beale IV
@burnspbesq: What-you mean a McDaniel-feted Mississippi-based Brooks Brothers riot?
Little Boots
oh, mcdaniel, you fight this. every step of the way. fight it with your dying breath. fight it like you’re the old confederacy, which in sop many ways, you are.
Violet
I hope McDaniel is a True Believer who won’t let this go. Keep the crazy in the news. The GOP has to be desperate to shut him up. Don’t think he’s going to go quietly.
Kay
piratedan
all they need are dueling pistols or canes to settle this like gentlemen…. while this is entertaining, I still hope that people will vote for the Democrat versus Cochran because it’s not as if Cochran won’t develop a case of political amnesia if he’s returned to office and proclaim that he’s the TeaParty’s Prodigal Son once he’s ensconced his patootie back in the Senate.
Tommy
There are few things if any in this world I dislike more then losing. It could be a golf or tennis match. Honestly it could be anything where competition is involved.
I used to be a terrible loser as a young kid. I’d yell. I’d bitch and moan. I’d throw stuff. Say everybody was against me.
My father pulled me aside and said Tommy you can tell a lot of the character of a man by how they handle defeat. When you lose you walk over and shake the hand of the person that beat you. Act like a gentlemen.
Then keep that rage inside and work and practice harder.
It seems many on the GOP never got this advice.
Kay
@burnspbesq:
Cochran is doing his own review, county by county. They said 500 votes in question out of 61 counties on Wednesday and they’re providing a list (at the link)
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/politicalledger/2014/07/09/mcdaniel-cochran-true-vote-lawsuit-hosemann/12425643/
Baud
@Kay:
LOL. The plot thickens.
shelley
Oy, how many weeks has it been? If they’ve got ‘proof’, ‘evidence’ or whatnot, just tell it already.
Little Boots
@Violet:
oh I suspect he is, or is willing to play one on the radio.
Violet
@Kay: I thought the GOP had already certified Cochran as the winner. Why is he paying for a review? Can the GOP un-certify him?
Another Holocene Human
@Tommy: Well, it’s a Midwestern thing, you know things change as you float down that river towards the Gulf.
Not gonna apologize for saying that either. I get encouraged to retaliate over petty things by others on a daily basis south of the Mason-Dixon line. Very unhealthy attitude.
Kay
@Baud:
If “affidavit ballots” are provisionals ( I think they are) 500 wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to review if it’s contested.
Kristin
Who are these 8,000 people who voted improperly? That would be unprecedented. But, because it exists in the fevered imagination of a teapartier, I guess it’s a thing.
Kay
@Violet:
I think he has to. They keep making allegations and he keeps denying them. You know how that goes. At some point he has to start showing something, or there will be a huge group of people in that state who think the election is invalid. He won’t persuade the real nutters but he can’t just let daily accusations sit there.
Tommy
@Another Holocene Human: I’ve heard it called Midwest sensibility. As somebody raised in the Midwest, then off to the deep south, then back to Midwest I honestly see it.
You don’t get that mad about this or that. Nor happy.
JPL
@Kristin: It depends on the definition of thing. He probably counted black votes in districts that normally vote democratic. Voila!
Maybe the word we should use is questionable…
MikeJ
@Kristin:
The argument is that there are some number of people who voted in the Democratic primary and then voted in the Republican run off.
Mississippi does follow the moronic idea of open primaries. You can vote in either party’s primary, but you can only vote in one. Voting in the Democratic primary would make you ineligible to vote in the Republican primary.
The total turnout for the Dem primary was ~85k. 8,000 people voting in both would mean that almost 10% of the people who voted in the Democratic primary voted in the run off, which is difficult to believe.
Tommy
@JPL: Can I ask a stupid question? How do you know this or that person who voted is African American? At least in my state my race isn’t attached to my Voter ID Card. Other stuff, not my race.
Shana
@gbear: Are you using the same contractor we are? We started a small kitchen addition and remodel project the first weekend in January. It was supposed to take 11 weeks. Granted there were weather-related issues that delayed construction of the concrete block foundation, but now we’re looking at a finish date sometime around the end of August. I strongly suspect that they’re on the verge of bankruptcy and fitting us in around jobs that are paying them more. Sigh.
MikeJ
@Tommy: Precinct number.
FlipYrWhig
McDaniel is SUCH a phony, transparent, smarmy little prick.
Kay
@Kristin:
What’s disgusting about it to me is how they’re holding on to every possible claim.
If they have genuine concerns about “double voting” (people who voted in both D and R primary) then say that and limit it to that. This word they’ve come up with “invalid”- I don’t know what that means.
It’s the whole possible universe of “voter fraud”, and typical. They’re smearing these people. What’s the claim? What’s a “questionable” vote and who decides? People who work for a national group that promotes scary stories about voter fraud? It isn’t fair. It’s just lousy, mean-spirited behavior. The onus isn’t on the voter to defend their ballot.
It’s like saying “we think there are 8000 people who broke some law in Mississippi, and all of them happen to be black people”.
Patricia Kayden
Don’t give up, McDaniel. Fight! Fight! Fight!
Crossing my fingers that somehow the Democratic candidate can slip in and win this seat.
JPL
@Tommy: It appears that the McDaniel campaign is researching votes from districts that are largely populated by blacks.
Patricia Kayden
@David Koch: The original Manchurian Candidate movie was so great. Don’t know why they decided to remake it.
Kay
@MikeJ:
They’re not limiting it to double voting, though. They’re saying things like “invalid” and “questionable”.
JPL
@Patricia Kayden: That would be hilarious.
JPL
@Kay: The law in MS is just odd because if you vote for a person in the primary, you are suppose to vote for he/she in the general election. It might be one of the most difficult laws to prosecute. Of course, you could raise your hand and say, it was me.
MikeJ
@Kay: Double voting would make it invalid. Are they specifically saying that they’re invalid in some way other than double voting? From what I can tell they’re just being vague and throwing a large number out there with no proof.
Kay
@JPL:
This is a little different than that, though. Ohio had what you’re talking about. If you took a D ballot in the primary that itself was a sworn statement that you would vote for the D in the general. They have since changed the law, but that’s what it was. It was impossible to enforce, which I found out when I worked the polls in the ’08 primary and tens of Republicans came in and voted for Hillary because Rush Limbaugh told them to. They then went on and voted for McCain the general, which was against the law.
The claim here (well, part of it because they’re keeping it deliberately vague) is they voted in BOTH the D and R primary.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Oh, wow. I’ve seen this one before. Does $15 sound like a very small amount of money to you? It’s meant to. The implication is that blacks are not just criminal, but criminal on a petty scale. It only takes $15 to buy a black person’s vote. It’s part of the whole ‘inferior race’ preconceptions. It’s fascinating, in a disgusting and offensive way, to see it so clearly on display here.
Kay
@MikeJ:
If you read it, they aren’t “specifically saying”. Other people are saying it’s double voting. They’re just throwing out broad accusations. It bothers me because that’s how voter fraud people operate. If someone knocks down one claim they just substitute another. The objective is to raise questions, create suspicion. I think that’s unfair to the accused.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
It continues to amaze me that no one in media is bothered by these people just throwing out accusations. I don’t know when that became okay, just an everyday thing, to question the votes of people they target. To me, they’ve flipped the burden here, from them to voters. That”s backwards. I don’t know when this happened.
Litlebritdifrnt
I listen to Sean Hannity (so sue me) know they enemy and all that, and I really began to like his opening song, I googled it, I youtubed it and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Today I found it. Why I am not surprised that it is a misogynistic cornucopia of a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbxuXq_981s
Cassidy
@Litlebritdifrnt: Don’t go down that rabbit hole. Hick hop is….special.
Suffern ACE
@Frankensteinbeck: at the same time, those voters are a pain in the ass with their demands. A ten AND a five. Or three fives? Why not just ask for a $20 rather than make the briber carry around all those extra small bills?
hamletta
@Patricia Kayden: I rather liked the remake. The screenwriter was careful to avoid trying to re-do iconic scenes from the original, and they went back to the book for some parts.
Plus, Jonathan Demme is a goddamn national treasure.
Kay
@Suffern ACE:
I love that the briber ratted on himself, and then retracted. In the second story he resisted the bribe. It still happened, he just didn’t do it. I’m not at all clear now if the plan came to fruition.
There is one dead in this primary. I think we have to keep that in mind. There is the lawyer who killed himself because he was implicated in the horrible “abuse of the disabled” issue at the nursing home. There’s a casualty. The whole thing is so insane and no one seems to know how to corral it.
Botsplainer
@SiubhanDuinne:
Seven Days in May was great, too.
Suffern ACE
@Kay: ok. But I’m still chuckling at “envelopes of thousands of dollars” that include five dollar bills. I’m imagining the minister in this story going to a bank to break the bills down. Since there’s only $250 in a stack, there are lots of envelopes.
My Truth Hurts
Behold everyone! The future of any election involving Republicans where they contest every single vote and litigate the results.
Mike in NC
@Botsplainer: ‘Seven Days in May’ is a classic. In the screenplay by Rod Serling, the motive for the coup is a treaty with the Soviets that the Pentagon opposed. In the book, the coup was about the US being bogged down in a war with Iran that the brass wanted to end.
Maybe in 1964 that sounded like a ridiculous premise, but we didn’t have neocons back then either.
Corner Stone
@MattF:
Depends on how one wears them.
Villago Delenda Est
Frankly, I”m surprised this mook can remember to breathe.
SiubhanDuinne
@Botsplainer:
As was Fail-Safe.
Citizen Alan
@burnspbesq:
I think it is highly likely that Travis Childers would beat McD in the general. Mississippians of all races who are not a part of the Tea Party are coming to LOATHE Chris McDaniel. The question now is whether his insane thrashings can damage Cochran enough to where Childers has a shot against a 30+ year incumbent.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: I’m shocked, shocked that they would do such a thing. I do feel a case of the vapors coming on.
Woodrowfan
“the Man” has its moments. The book was better.. Not great either, but better…
Tripod
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@efgoldman: I meant the real McCarthy West Virginia speech rather than something from The Manchurian Candidate.
Tripod
@Tripod:
Anoniminous
@Villago Delenda Est:
Are the pearls you are about to clutch natural or cultured? If the first, fresh or salt water?
(These things matter.)
Anoniminous
@Citizen Alan:
I think it is highly unlikely McDaniel will get a re-do of the primary and get the official GOP nomination. What could happen is his supporters either don’t vote or vote for Childers out of spite. If so and another 39% off-year turnout Childers could take the seat.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
A terrific film but it makes Raymond’s tragedy so personal (and Lawrence Harvey’s performance is so great) that parts of it are hard for me to watch, especially towards the end.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet: True Believer crazy has to be cultivated in order for the harvest of grift to be brought in.
Televangelists have known this for decades. It’s the same basic model.
JoyfulA
@Tommy: Pennsylvania used to ask for “skin color.” I always wrote “sallow.”
But I see my voter card doesn’t have any such description, I guess for everybody and not just uncooperative voters.
Villago Delenda Est
@Patricia Kayden: Jonathan Demme thought he could recapture lightning in the bottle.
Admittedly, Meryl Streep gave a very creepy performance, that went farther than Frankenheimer was allowed to do with Angela Lansbury in the original, but Liev Schreiber is not Lawrence Harvey, and while Denzel Washington is a fine actor, he didn’t have the same intensity that Frank Sinatra brought to the original.
Plus the plot had cold war immediacy in the original, and I’m sorry, some huge corporation is just not the same as the worldwide communist conspiracy as a villain.
r€nato
let’s suppose that there really are 8400 ‘questionable’ ballots and ALL of them are found to have been fraudulently cast.
In order to reverse the results of an election which he lost by roughly 7700 votes, the thrown-out ballots would have to tilt something like 80% Cochrane. In a race that was roughly 50-50, that’s pretty improbable. Even then, the new results would be so close that Cochrane’s campaign would be entitled to ask for recount, I would think.
Sore loserman!
evodevo
@Another Holocene Human: Same in Ky, especially the mountainous part …. “You’re not gonna let him get away with that, are ya?! You need to do something about that…”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Anoniminous: Late to the party, but…
The numbers are there for Childers to win – there are enough potential voters in the state to make it happen. They just need to turn out. (As always.)
Something I’ve been surprised by are the continuing drip, drip, drip stories about Cochran’s memory – e.g. getting lost on the way to lunch:
Supposedly it’s easy to get lost there, but it is a little disconcerting.
Childers may have a better chance than people expect – but he’ll have to work hard for it.
Cheers,
Scott.
lol
@Tommy:
VRA states are required to track race.
drkrick
@Kay:
The way to corral it is simple – candidates need to accept it when they lose and go home. Supporting the winner of the primary not required, just accept that you lost. Unfortunately when you have candidates who think they are God’s own anointed sole carrier of virtue and wisdom, they tend to think that they can’t lose legitimately and we start to see this kind of foolishness.
Of course, there was a time when obviously crazy people attracted very few votes. Returning to that situation would help, too.