I've told the story about how we used to say "Thank God for Mississippi" because no matter how bad things were in Alabama, they were worse in Mississippi. They usually ranked 50 on polls about education, health care etc. We don't usually talk about or hear about local/state politics here, but this is funny, suspicious and bizarre!


Mississippi, I Love You


You remember how Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel vs. Thad Cochran has been the craziest race in America so far? I mean, it’s not every race that involves four arrests for sneaking into a nursing home to photograph a candidate’s wife.

And the candidate made a run-off against the incumbent?

When the goings get weird the political pros get weirder.

The Hinds County Sheriff’s Department is investigating why three people, including a high-ranking Chris McDaniel campaign official, were found locked in the Hinds County Courthouse in Jackson hours after an election official says the building was closed early Wednesday morning.

No, really. Three people, each having a different story about how it happened. And, boy howdy, they are Tres Amigos with some evil intent on their agenda.

There’s Janis Lane, Scott Brewster and Rob Chambers.


Lane is a member of the board of directors of the Central Mississippi Tea Party.

Chambers is a consultant with the Mississippi Baptist Christian Action Commission who has worked with McDaniel and members of the Senate Conservative Coalition to fight Common Core.

Brewster is a former coordinator of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s Mississippi operation and is currently McDaniel’s campaign coalition coordinator.

That makes the worse walk-into-a-bar joke ever. A Tea Party organizer, a Baptist, and a political operative walk into a bar…. They drink all the liquor, steal the cash register and shoot out the security camera.

Get this: They were locked inside the courthouse until 3:45 am when everybody else left at 11:30. Mark my word — there was either hanky panky or devil worship going on.

With the rate that Chris McDaniel’s political operatives are getting arrested, they ought to name one of the prisons after him.

Here’s the latest —

Hinds County Republican Executive Chairman Pete Perry said he had serious concerns about the incident.

“I don’t care who it is. I have a concern with someone being in the courthouse with all the election material down there,” Perry said.

Perry said everyone left the courthouse by 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and locked up.

He said he got a phone call from Lane around 2 a.m. Wednesday saying two people, including her, were locked inside the courthouse and were looking for a way out.

Perry said Lane was a precinct worker and had dropped off her ballot materials about 8:30 p.m. Perry said some precinct information wasn’t sealed.

Honey, leave me, Thelma, and Verdelia alone with the ballots for a few hours and I could be President of the United States. Or, hell, Queen of the World – my rightful title.

Ya know, this might be worth a road trip to Biloxi just to watch in person.

http://www.juanitajean.com/2014/06/05/m ... -love-you/

Steve Benen uses different words but seems to come to the same conclusion as juanitajean ~ ~ Sooz

In Mississippi, ‘the paradox of all paradoxes’
06/05/14 12:31 PM
By Steve Benen

There’s a school of thought that divides American states into “makers vs. takers.” The former states send more to Washington than they receive back, while the latter states take more from Washington than they send.

And in this dynamic, Mississippi is the biggest “taker” of them all – receiving, on average, more from the federal government than any other state. With a nod to the state’s political posturing and anti-Washington attitudes, Dick Polman said yesterday, “What we have here, in other words, is a major cognitive disconnect. If government ever got off the backs of Mississippians, their backs would be broken.”

E.J. Dionne Jr. is thinking along similar lines, posing the right question from Mississippi: “Can you hate the federal government but love the money it spends on you?”


Rickey Cole, the state Democratic chairman, told E.J., “If Mississippi did what the tea party claims they want … we would become a Third World country, quickly. We depend on the federal government to help us build our highways. We depend on the federal government to fund our hospitals, our health-care system. We depend on the federal government to help us educate our students on every level.”

No wonder Cochran was caught off-guard. He’s thrived for decades by rewarding his state’s communities with federal resources – and it’s not as if Mississippians have been clamoring for their elected officials to deliver fewer benefits.

Little did Cochran know his own party would decide to hold his successes against him.

It’s led Gail Collins to ask the right questions.


Apparently, the thinking is that a vote for Chris McDaniel is a vote for fewer roads, fewer medical benefits, and less education – and that’s the platform that’s propelling him to victory in Mississippi.

The phrase “be careful what you wish for” keeps coming to mind.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mississippi-the-paradox-all#break

Obviously, they don't need those federal education dollars...

Thad Cochran apparently squeaked by TPer Chris McDaniel in a primary run-off yesterday ~ McDaniel is, of course, "exploring his options" so there may be more to this story ~ but Ed Kilgore does an excellent job of explaining why Mississippi is "different" ~ ~ Sooz

Cochran Win Is A Mississippi Exclusive
Ed Kilgore – June 25, 2014, 12:24 AM EDT

As is always the case, many gallons of ink (and cyber-ink) will be spilled over the next 48 hours harvesting national political implications from Thad Cochran’s victory in the Mississippi GOP Senate runoff yesterday. Some will simply revert to the MSM’s preferred “Establishment Crushes Tea Party” 2014 primaries narrative. Others will tout Cochran as matching Mitch McConnell in pursuing the audacious tactic of aggressively reminding Republican voters of the smoky goodness of the pork they deliver.

And probably not a few observers will make it an object lesson for the GOP that African-American voters can be drawn to their side — even in a GOP primary — with the right combination of effort and message.

There could be an element of truth to all these interpretations. But it’s important to remember we are talking about Mississippi, a unique state in many respects. Let’s look at the ways the Magnolia State’s unusual character made Thad Cochran’s win possible:

1) Heavy dependence on military spending in coastal counties, where Cochran campaigned heavily during the runoff period and improved both turnout and his percentage of the vote.

2) The justifiably defeatist attitude among Mississippi Democrats that made them a ripe target for Cochran’s audacious attempts to recruit them for a Republican runoff.

3) The lack of party registration, the poor turnout in the June 3 Democratic primaries, and Mississippi’s large African-American population, which together created a pool of winnable Democratic votes for Cochran.

4) The highly visible McDaniel-associated campaign to deplore and even intimidate “crossover” voting, which brought back many bad memories of Mississippi’s notorious resistance to African-American voting rights.

5) The massive trans-ideological support for Cochran among a Mississippi “Republican Establishment” that would be considered hard-core right-wing in most other states.

These factors help explain why Team Cochran deployed the counter-intuitive runoff strategy of not competing with McDaniel for the “most conservative” mantle, but instead emphasizing his pork-producing background, attacking McDaniel as an extremist, and overtly appealing for Democratic (code in Mississippi for African-American) votes.

Is there another state where a Republican could deploy this same strategy and win? It would have to be a heavily GOP state with a sizable defense industry, no party registration, an unusually conservative “Republican Establishment” and a large percentage of minority voters. That pretty much narrows it down to Alabama and maybe Texas. Add in the fact that Cochran had managed to avoid race-baiting for a few decades in a race-obsessed state, and you have a really unique situation.

Had McDaniel won, we might have had the interesting and potentially replicable scenario of conservative voters choosing ideology over self-interest in America’s poorest state, and then a general election test of partisan and racial polarization. But that’s all water over the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Anyone who tells you yesterday’s runoff in Mississippi explains much of anything about any place other than Mississippi may be reaching. But Josh Marshall is right: the backlash to the Cochran victory in Mississippi and elsewhere could be powerful. It’s bad enough for “Establishment Republicans” to make electability arguments against “true conservatives” who view electoral victories as subordinate to maintaining a permanent agenda of turning back the clock to 1964 or even 1934. It’s far worse when Republicans resort to appeals to those people in a GOP primary, particularly on the basis of ACORN-like suggestions that those people might benefit from their votes in terms of federal largesse.

It will be interesting to see if McDaniels and his national backers resort to the threadbare “voter fraud” explanation for Cochran’s win, especially if they rely on the even more threadbare argument that Mississippi law bans primary voting by those who do not intend to support the party in November (yes, it theoretically does, but absent brain scans it’s unenforceable, and if it were enforceable it would be unconstitutional). As for Democrats: they may hoist one or two cheers for their voters deciding a GOP nomination primary, but withhold more because they probably doomed their own candidate to defeat.

Again, that’s a Mississippi exclusive.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/cochran-win-is-a-mississippi-exclusive

this will be a well studied race.

Another outstanding commentary from Amanda Marcotte ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating info in the original ~ Sooz

It’s the 21st century, and yet here we are arguing the “legitimacy” of black voters
By Amanda Marcotte
Thursday, June 26, 2014 13:05 EDT

It’s been fascinating watching the total meltdown on the right over the issue of how to feel about Republican Sen. Thad Cochran beat Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel in a primary runoff. This may be one of those things that sinks under the waves in a couple of months and is only getting so much right wing media real estate because there’s not a whole lot else going on. But there’s always the possibility that certain tensions on the right are coming to the forefront and they won’t be going away anytime soon.

The issue at stake is, unsurprisingly considering this is going on in Mississippi, the role of race. Well, it’s a little surprising since both candidates are white guys who endorse a similar set of policy ideals that—though Republicans like to pretend this is totally coincidental—tend to uphold persistent racial inequalities and hold significant numbers of black Americans in poverty. But Sen. Cochran successfully convinced many black voters to come out and vote against McDaniel in the primary. This has created a deeply fucked up situation where Tea Party supporters have started to gripe and moan about how black voters are illegitimate and their votes shouldn’t count. Yes, you read the date right. This is 2014 and we are experiencing a “debate” on whether or not it’s okay for a candidate to appeal to black voters and for those voters to vote how they choose.

While it seems straightforwardly awful to bitch about black people voting and suggest they don’t have a right, there is, of course, an official excuse for why that’s not racist. The official story is that it’s illegitimate for Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. “There is something a bit strange, there is something a bit unusual, about a Republican primary that’s decided by liberal Democrats,” McDaniel complained. The problem with that is that the are no “Democrats” in Mississippi. Or “Republicans”, either. Like many states, voters don’t have to register a party and can choose to vote in whichever primary they want. (It’s like this in Texas, too, and I know Republican voters who vote in Democratic primaries sometimes for this reason.) The only reason that McDaniel assumes that this specific set of voters shouldn’t count is because they are black, and black people usually lean Democratic in national elections. But that justification is paper-thin and overtly racist. Who says black people can’t vote for Republicans if they want to? That’s all that happened here. I guarantee that not a single motherfucker who is whining about this thinks that it’s wrong for Republicans who live in heavily Democratic districts to vote in Democratic primaries, where it’s legal to do so. In states like Mississippi where one party dominates, often the only power that minority voters have is to vote in the primary. The entire argument rests on the assumption that black voters somehow count for less or should be subject to more restrictions on their rights.

Simply put, the right to pick the lesser of two evils is one that is shared by all voters, and arguing that black voters shouldn’t be able to do that is pure, unadulterated racism.

The unavoidable racism of McDaniel and his supporters in complaining about this is causing some interesting ugliness in Republican circles, as many prominent Republicans are speaking out against anyone complaining that black voters used their legal right to vote. Not that they’re doing so as a noble stand against racism, so much as a combination of wanting to see the Tea Party put in its place and not wanting the overtly racist elements to make the whole party look bad.

That the struggle between mainstream Republicans and the Tea Party would get ugly over race, looking back, should have been entirely predictable. The two factions don’t disagree one iota about policy, not really. The real struggle is over identity. The Tea Party is a faction that is primarily, solely really, motivated by the belief that they—they being white, Christian conservatives—are the “real” Americans and everyone else should sit down and know their place. That’s why their knee-jerk response was to argue that it’s illegitimate for black people to vote. And that’s been the reason they are so pissed about Cochran’s win, even though he does everything they want when it comes to policy and then some.

Take, for instance, Sarah Palin threatening to start a third party over this. “If Republicans are gonna act like Democrats, then what’s the use?” But what does this mean, “act like Democrats”? It doesn’t mean act like Democrats when it comes to policy—again, there’s no daylight between the Tea Party and Republicans like Cochran on this. The thing that Cochran did that is reminiscent of Democrats is that he appealed to black voters. That’s it. The assumption is that they don’t want to join the club if black voters are invited to join it, too. And it really is nothing more than that.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/26/its-the-21st-century-and-yet-here-we-are-arguing-the-legitimacy-of-black-voters/

The Mississippi rightwingnut frothing is a hoot. Must be due to having too many issholes in the state.

Hahahaha! This race is a hoot and a holler!

Oh, Mississippi, Oh


Y’all, I did not realize that the Thad Cochran / Chris McDaniel race was a fight to the death match.

That sucker is still going on!

After one of the nastiest races in American history including breaking into a nursing home, calling Cochran’s daughter illegitimate, a suicide over shenanigans, and claiming that black people swung this election and God knows black people have caused enough trouble already, now Cochran is offering snitch money.


Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel’s (R) campaign announced Thursday that they are offering 15 rewards of $1,000 each for people who can bring evidence that leads to the arrest and conviction of people involved in voter fraud in the Mississippi Republican runoff for U.S. Senate between McDaniel and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), who won the runoff.

McDaniel’s Senate campaign announced the reward in an email as part of his newly launched “Election Integrity Challenge and Voter Fraud Reward.”

Well, that’s catchy – the EICAEF Reward.

Y’all, who thinks up these things?

That’s how the tea partiers win, they just finally wear you down by being bullies.

Look, McDaniel, you got out-cheated. Take it like a man. Shuddup.

http://www.juanitajean.com/2014/07/03/o ... ssippi-oh/

Maybe that republican guy from Wisconsin who voted several times at Walker's recall made also a few trips to Mississippi?

Naw! He's white. All his votes are legit.

McDaniel is a dangerous fellow.

As I said. Hoot and holler.

No. No. No No. No No No No Nonononono. Shuddup!

I was right. The McDaniels / Cochran race is going to last forever and get crazier and crazier.

Here’s the deal.

Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at 4.04.31 PM

Yes, indeedy. Chris McDaniel played basketball. In high school and junior college. So he could not be … you know, racist. Because he played basketball.

Holy crap. How can you use a racist statement to prove someone is not a racist?


“It’s been frustrating to see so many people in the black community be convinced that Chris McDaniel was a racist just because someone they trusted told them he was,” the editorial, published on July 2, read. “If they did a little research on their own, they would find out that McDaniel was a basketball standout at South Jones and Jones County Junior College.”

Makes your head hurt, doesn’t it?

Okay, so where are all those basketball players coming forward to report that McDaniel is not a racist?

[crickets. crickets.]

But not even that. Let’s just stand in a state of stunned for a few minutes that anyone would use junior college basketball as proof of tolerance.

No No No No No No Do not do that.

http://www.juanitajean.com/2014/07/08/n ... o-shuddup/

LOL! ~ juanitajean is a gem ~ I read somewhere today that someone in McDaniel's camp is claiming they found "thousands" of voter cheats in the run-off ... at the same time as the state was confirming there was too little evidence of any cheating to force another recount or rematch ~

Sooz

I read somewhere late last night [and will try to find that article again to post here] that apparently McDaniel is claiming he won by something like 25,000 votes ... which seems just a tad unbelievable ~ ~ Sooz

McDaniel goes for broke in Mississippi
08/05/14 08:30 AM—Updated 08/05/14 09:30 AM
By Steve Benen

After losing a Republican primary runoff in June, Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel vowed action. Sure, it looked like incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran had prevailed, but McDaniel was convinced the senator’s victory was illegitimate and the challenger made no secret of his intention to fight back.

It took much longer than expected – Cochran’s general election is now just 91 days away – but McDaniel moved the process forward yesterday.


One of the interesting things about yesterday’s announcement is the fact that McDaniel swung for the fences. I largely expected him to either call for a do-over or a recount based on a new ballot standard. But not this guy – the right-wing challenger said he should simply be declared the winner of the primary in which he received fewer votes. Indeed, he’d like that declaration to happen immediately.

His attorney made this quite plain: “We are not asking for a new election, we are simply asking that the Republican Party actually recognize the person who won the runoff election.”

And according to McDaniel’s lawyer, that’s McDaniel, election results notwithstanding.

But what about this “evidence” the challenger claims to have presented?

Rick Hasen, a national expert in elections law, took a closer look at McDaniel’s pitch and came away unimpressed.


It sounds like McDaniel should resist the urge to start looking at apartments in the D.C. area.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mcdaniel-goes-broke-mississippi#break

This is the article I read late last night [and referred to in my above post] where McDaniel claims to have won the run-off by 25,000 votes ~ ~ Sooz

TPM LIVEWIRE
McDaniel Finally Announces Legal Challenge: Give Me The GOP Nomination
By Daniel Strauss Published August 4, 2014, 4:22 PM EDT

Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) and his legal team formally announced on Monday his legal challenge to the runoff results of the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, saying he won the nomination by 25,000 votes on June 24 and asked the party to award him the nomination without holding another election.

McDaniel attorney Mitch Tyner (pictured right), with McDaniel standing next to him, announced the McDaniel campaign would file a formal challenge to the election results with the state executive committee of the Republican Party.

"They asked us to put up or shut up. Here we are. Here we are with the evidence," McDaniel said.

The announcement came about six weeks after the runoff election, which Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) won. Since the election McDaniel and his supporters have been poring over poll books to find examples of illegal crossover voting. McDaniel has argued that he is actually the true Republican nominee for Senate and that Cochran and the incumbent senator's supporters only won through "race-baiting" and courting Democratic votes.

"Through the acts that they took, the actions that they took, they moved over 40,000 Democrats into the Republican primary. And in so doing, mistakes were made," McDaniel said.

McDaniel said that his team would show "what we're going to show is a pattern of conduct the part of a number of people that demonstrates a problem with this election."

Tyner said that his team had found 3,500 illegal crossover votes. Tyner also said they've found 9,500 questionable votes and then an additional 2,275 absentee ballots that were improperly cast.

McDaniel ultimately won the runoff by 25,000 votes, Tyner claimed. That 25,000 number seems to be the McDaniel team factoring Democrats who voted in the Republican primary but don't plan to vote for the Republican nominee in the general election. McDaniel and his team have argued that under Mississippi law, anyone who votes in the primary is bound to support the eventual nominee of that primary. But the Mississippi law that the team is basing that on is unenforceable and was overturned by a federal judge in 2008.

"We anticipate that after they review the challenge that they'll see that Chris McDaniel clearly, clearly won the Republican vote on the runoff," Tyner said. "I say that very assuredly because that's what the mathematics show."

Tyner went on to say they were not looking to hold another election.

"So, the short answer is that we're not asking for a new election," Tyner said. "We're simply asking that the Republican Party actually recognize the person who won the runoff election."

The Cochran campaign quickly released a statement from campaign attorney Mark Garriga saying that the law firm Butler Snow had been retained to defend the election contest:


This post was updated.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chris-mcdaniel-thad-cochran-legal-challenge

A legal challenge based on an overturned law? Are they nuts?

I'm only then convinced who won when Karl Rove calls it.

Yesterday, there were reports that at least 2 and maybe 3 people were arguing that each was the person who paid off another man to allege that Cochran was "buying black votes" ~ this mess should embarrass everyone involved on any level ~ Sooz

Mississippi GOP denies McDaniel’s primary vote challenge
By Reuters
Thursday, August 7, 2014 6:34 EDT

The Mississippi Republican Party on Wednesday denied U.S. Senate hopeful Chris McDaniel’s challenge of the June 24 primary race he lost to incumbent U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, in which the conservative state senator argued some 15,000 ballots had been illegally or improperly cast.

State Republican Party Chairman Joe Nosef said it could not decide such a complex issue, given time constraints and other concerns mandated by party bylaws and state statutes.

“The only way to ensure the integrity of the election process and provide a prudent review of this matter is in a court of law,” Nosef wrote in a letter to McDaniel’s attorney on Wednesday.

McDaniel and his supporters say Democrats voted in their partisan primary and then again in the Republican runoff in violation of election rules.

Mitch Tyner, McDaniel’s attorney, signaled after receiving the letter that he would file the challenge in a state circuit court. He said the campaign has provided the state Republican Party evidence it had collected, such as signed affidavits by campaign volunteers, that purports to show voter misdeeds.

On Monday, Tyner argued enough ballots were improperly cast to cost McDaniel the election. The Cochran campaign disputes the accusations and has vowed to continue doing so in court.

The news comes hours after a man pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring with three others to photograph Cochran’s bedridden wife for political purposes.

John Mary entered his plea to one count of felony conspiracy before Madison County Circuit Judge William Chapman, who sentenced him to five years of supervised probation on condition he cooperated with the probe into the case.

Mary, a former conservative radio host, was arrested in May after authorities said he helped political blogger Clayton Kelly sneak into the Jackson-area nursing home where Rose Cochran has lived for a decade because of Alzheimer’s disease, and photograph her.

Kelly later posted the images in an online video attacking Cochran, but the video was removed soon after.

Besides Kelly and Mary, authorities arrested school teacher Richard Sager and attorney Mark Mayfield for their roles in the incident. Kelly and Sager deny wrongdoing. Their cases have yet to go before a grand jury. Mayfield committed suicide in June.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/07/mississippi-gop-denies-mcdaniels-primary-vote-challenge/

From yesterday ~ the "live link" below tells the whole sordid story ~ Sooz

Three-Way Doofus Duel at Thirty Paces
By Josh Marshall Published August 6, 2014, 11:53 AM EDT

Stevie Fielder, who originally claimed he'd been paid by the Cochran campaign to buy African-American votes, now says that was a lie and that he was paid to lie by McDaniel spokesman Noel Fritsch. Au contraire, Fritsch tells TPM, Charles Johnson is the one who paid Fielder. Who's telling the truth? All that's clear so far is that the Coen Brothers produce and direct.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/three-way-doofus-duel-at-thirty-paces

"DID NOT!" ~ "DID SO!" ~ what idiots!!! ~ ~ Sooz

I Did So Pay Him!
By Josh Marshall Published August 6, 2014, 2:22 PM EDT

With news that the confessed liar at the center of the Cochran 'black vote buying' pseudo-scandal now says he was paid to lie by Chris McDaniel's campaign spokesman, Charles Johnson, incendiary right wing journalist, has stepped forward to defend his role in the caper. "It's utter bullshit that anyone other than me paid Fielder for his text messages," Johnson tells TPM.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/i-did-so-pay-him

I want the movie rights!!!!!

Three Stooges are already spoken for.

Will this public circle-jerk ever be over? ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Chris McDaniel: Toss Out Primary Votes Because Of A Poll My Campaign Conducted
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 8/7/2014 1:35 pm

Still refusing to concede his runoff primary defeat to Sen. Thad Cochran, Mississippi state senator Chris McDaniel took his case today to “Focal Point” with Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association spokesman who campaigned with and endorsed him.

McDaniel has challenged the results of the runoff and demanded the state GOP declare him to be the nominee.

While speaking with Fischer, McDaniel cited a completely unenforceable state law stipulating that “[n]o person shall be eligible to participate in any primary election unless he intends to support the nominations made in which he participates.”

McDaniel said his campaign commissioned a poll of Mississippi Democrats and found that around 71 percent of those who voted in the GOP primary for Cochran did not intend to vote for him in the general election. Therefore, McDaniel says, people’s actual votes should be “invalidated” due to what his campaign’s poll says about their imaginary, future votes.


http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/chris-mcdaniel-toss-out-primary-votes-because-poll-my-campaign-conducted

I'm starting to feel sorry for this loser. Maybe a few donated packs of Kleenex will help when he cries into his cup of tea?

The law seems perfectly clear to me ~ so, unless the McDaniel camp can find a more recent law that overturns the original law, McDaniel loses ~ hopefully, this ends the Ted Cruz-wannabe charade ~ ~ Sooz

Judge dismisses Chris McDaniel’s Mississippi Senate election challenge
By Reuters
Friday, August 29, 2014 16:44 EDT
By Emily Le Coz

JACKSON Miss. (Reuters) – A Mississippi judge on Friday dismissed an election challenge brought by Tea Party-backed U.S. Senate candidate Chris McDaniel, who claims incumbent Thad Cochran stole the Republican primary by encouraging voter fraud.

Ruling on a contest once seen as a test of Tea Party clout, Special Judge Hollis McGehee found that McDaniel waited too long to file an initial complaint with the state Republican Party.

“The undisputed facts are that McDaniel filed his complaint 41 days after the date of the election,” McGehee said, speaking from a Gulfport courthouse. “The law requires it to be done within 20 days.”

The McDaniel campaign has the option to appeal, campaign spokesman Noel Fritsch said.

“We certainly respect the legal process, but we absolutely disagree on this point of law. We are going to take the weekend to take stock and see whether it’s prudent to elevate this to the next level. We’ll announce something Tuesday, probably in a press conference,” Fritsch said after the ruling.

McDaniel, a state senator, lost the Republican nomination in a June 24 runoff election by roughly 7,700 votes. He refused to concede, saying that thousands of ballots had been improperly cast or mishandled by county election officials.

Cochran’s campaign has maintained that McDaniel’s challenge is without merit and has said that Cochran, a six-term incumbent, is focused on the general election.

Travis Childers, a former congressman, is the Democratic nominee for the seat.

(Reporting Emily Le Coz; Editing by Jonathan Kaminsky)

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/29/judge-dismisses-chris-mcdaniels-mississippi-senate-election-challenge/