Appearing yesterday on CNN, Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel repeated his vow to continue fighting the results of the runoff election that ended with a victory for Senator Thad Cochran:
(CNN) – The tea party-backed challenger who narrowly lost a Republican primary runoff in Mississippi to longtime Sen. Thad Cochran says he plans to file a legal challenge contesting those results “any day now.”
State Sen. Chris McDaniel said Friday on CNN’s “New Day” that “the integrity of the process matters. We believe on that night of June 24 there were thousands of irregularities and we’ve already found thousands of irregularities in the process.”
McDaniel also defended his campaign’s offer – announced Thursday – of rewards of $1,000 each for individuals providing “evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in voter fraud.”
And McDaniel said “we condemn any racist comments what so ever,” when asked by CNN anchor Kate Bolduan about a bizarre Cochran campaign conference call on Wednesday that included borderline racist comments by an unidentified caller who appeared to be a supporter of the challenger’s campaign.
(…)
According to Mississippi law, voters are not required to register with a political party, and anyone who doesn’t vote in a primary election can cast a ballot in either party’s runoff.
Since the runoff, McDaniel has refused to concede and has repeatedly vowed to use every legal maneuver available to fight the results.
McDaniel alleges that some Democrats who voted in the runoff had previously cast a ballot in their party’s Senate primary.
“Right now, we have found we have found more than 5,000 irregularities. There are more than 19,000 absentee ballots we still haven’t seen yet,” McDaniel told CNN.
(…)
According to Mississippi law, voters are not required to register with a political party, and anyone who doesn’t vote in a primary election can cast a ballot in either party’s runoff.
Since the runoff, McDaniel has refused to concede and has repeatedly vowed to use every legal maneuver available to fight the results.
McDaniel alleges that some Democrats who voted in the runoff had previously cast a ballot in their party’s Senate primary.
“Right now, we have found we have found more than 5,000 irregularities. There are more than 19,000 absentee ballots we still haven’t seen yet,” McDaniel told CNN.
I’ve already addressed the substance of the allegations that McDaniel and his supporters are making — see here, here, and here — so there’s no need to go in to those details here. Perhaps the most important fact raised in all of those arguments, though, is that in the end it seems largely impossible for McDaniel to actually prove any of the allegations that he’s making here, and even less of a chance that he has any realistic chance of overturning the results of the election or getting a judge to overturn the result. What McDaniel do, though, is cause serious damage to the GOP not only in Mississippi but also nationally if this, and the racially tinged sentiments coming from some McDaniel supporters, continues. At this point, though, I’m not sure who or what could cause McDaniel to back away from this seemingly idiotic strategy of his.
