McDaniel Campaign: Trio Locked In Courthouse Were Sent By Campaign

Chris McDaniel addresses his supporters, Tuesday June 3, 2014, at the Lake Terrace Convention Center in Hattiesburg, Miss. It could be days or weeks before the results of the Mississippi Republican Senate primary bet... Chris McDaniel addresses his supporters, Tuesday June 3, 2014, at the Lake Terrace Convention Center in Hattiesburg, Miss. It could be days or weeks before the results of the Mississippi Republican Senate primary between six-term incumbent Thad Cochran and McDaniel. The race was too close to call on election night Tuesday. With a third candidate on the ballot, neither Cochran nor McDaniel managed to get at least 50 percent plus one vote, the threshold to win outright and avoid a June 24 runoff. (AP Photo/George Clark) MORE LESS
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Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel’s campaign said in a statement that three people who found themselves locked in a Mississippi courthouse were sent there by the campaign to observe the tallying of ballots in the Republican primary of the Mississippi race for U.S. Senate.

The campaign sent out the following statement to local after news broke that Central Mississippi Tea Party Party President Janis Lane as well as McDaniel coalitions director Scott Brewster and another man, Rob Chambers, ended up locked in the Hinds County Courthouse on election night, where the election commission offices and the circuit clerk are located. The primary election ballots were counted there as well.

Below is the statement from the campaign late on Wednesday:

Last night with an extremely close election and Hinds being one of the last counties to report, our campaign sent people to the Hinds courthouse to obtain the outstanding numbers and observe the count.

In doing so, they entered the courthouse through an open door after being directed by uniformed personnel. They were then locked inside the building. At this point they sat down and called the county Republican chairman, a close Cochran ally, to help them get out. Eventually a Sheriff’s officer showed up and opened the door to let them out.

This story was updated.

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Notable Replies

  1. At 2 am??? They need to get their stories straight.

  2. Sounds plausible. They go in to observe the count of an election that is thisclose, and then the counters leave without noticing that the three campaign operatives who had been observing them were still there.
    Happens all the time.

  3. I find it suspicious that they were out at that hour without masks.

  4. That is the response from yesterday, when the story started to break. Now they have had a night to mull things over, lets see how much it changes today.

  5. Typically poll observers are assigned by candidates, approved by the election officials and not sent at some odd hour of the process. So the campaign is speaking to its ignorant wing with the message.

    McDaniel is Jim Crow, John Birch, NeoConfederate, KKK and low IQ Billy all rolled into one. One sick MF

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