Supporters and campaign staff for state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) sorted through voter books at the Hinds County courthouse on Thursday, looking for “irregularities,” according to Mississippi’s WLBT.
Two days earlier Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), who McDaniel was challenging, was declared the winner in the runoff election between the two candidates for U.S. Senate in Mississippi.
Hinds County went for Cochran in both the original Republican primary on June 3rd and the runoff. In the runoff, 72 percent voted for Cochran while 28 percent voted for McDaniel. Staffers say they are looking for voters who voted in the Democratic primary on June 3 and the Republican runoff on June 24, which is illegal under state law.
The Hinds County courthouse, it should be noted, was the courthouse where a McDaniel staffer and two supporters found themselves locked inside after they went there after the courthouse had been locked to monitor ballot counting on June 3rd. The courthouse is where the ballots are kept.
McDaniel, on Tuesday, refused to concede the race because, he told radio host Mark Levin, a number of Cochran voters in the runoff broke the law by voting for Cochran when they plan to vote for a Democrat in the general election. That claim is a reference to a Mississippi law that said a voter can only vote in a primary if the voter plans to support the primary’s nominee in the general election. But that law was ruled unenforceable in 2008 by a federal appeals court.
