Major Lawsuit Over Senate Race 'Shenanigans'
Photo Credit: WNDBy James Simpson.
True the Vote, the citizens initiative pursuing “free and fair elections for all Americans,” and 13 other plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Mississippi Secretary of State and the Republican Party of Mississippi over the June 24 primary election runoff in which Sen. Thad Cochran edged tea-party challenger Chris McDaniel.
The lawsuit asks the court to grant immediate access to voting records to inspect for possible illegal voting. It asserts that “defendants failed to properly abide by federal election record maintenance and open records provisions codified in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Records made partially available to the plaintiffs indicated ‘double-voting’ from Democratic to Republican primaries – potentially diluting votes in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”
The complaint explains that the National Voter Registration Act supersedes Mississippi law.
“All we are asking is that the Mississippi State Republican Party follow the law; allow their designated county representatives to inspect the poll books and ballots, give them the review time they are permitted by law, and allow them to uphold their responsibility to Mississippi voters … True the Vote has been inundated with reports from voters across Mississippi who are outraged to see the integrity of this election being undermined so that politicos can get back to business as usual. Enough is enough,” said True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht.
McDaniel won the June 3 state GOP primary with a margin too small (about 1,500 votes) to avoid a runoff. Cochran won the runoff with 7,000 votes, allegedly by convincing thousands of black Democrats to cross over and vote for him in the runoff.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Democrat Pastor Accuses Thad Cochran Campaign of Vote-For-Pay Scheme
By Matthew Boyle.
Photo Credit: Gotnews.comA black Mississippi pastor has emerged to claim Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-MS) campaign paid “thousands” of Democrats $15 each to vote in the June 24 GOP runoff – and that he was part of the scheme.
Rev. Stevie Fielder, an associate pastor at First Union Missionary Baptist Church in Meridian, Mississippi, says Cochran’s campaign “told me to offer blacks $15 each and to vote for Thad.”
Fielder, who was paid by freelance journalist Charles C. Johnson for the story, provided a new outlet launched by Johnson—GotNews.com—with four text messages from a person purporting to be Cochran campaign staffer Saleem Baird.
The messages cite an official Cochran campaign email address—[email protected]—and include detailed discussions of the campaign providing envelopes of money to distribute to people who vote.
“Send me individual names and amounts along with home address to [email protected] and I’ll have money separated in envelopes at the office waiting for you,” one message, sent three days before the runoff, says.
Read more from this story HERE.
