(Via Daily Caller) Volunteers working for tea party challenger Chris McDaniel in Mississippi say they have already found 20 percent of the invalid double-votes they need to cancel Sen. Thad Cochran’s business-funded runoff victory.
“We’re finished with Hinds County, and we’re up to 1,500” invalid votes, said Noel Fritsch, Daniel’s press aide.
That’s critical because McDaniel can force another runoff if he can find more invalid votes than Cochran’s roughly 7,000-vote margin-of-victory on June 24. Votes are invalidated if voters cast ballots in both the Democrats’ June 3 primary and the GOP’s run-off on June 24.
However, McDaniel can also force another election even if he can’t find 7,000 invalid ballots, said Fritsch.
“We don’t have to prove that we have 7,000 [invalid] votes…. all there needs to be is enough doubt about the election, and we’re confident about that,” he said.
That “cancel by doubt” strategy gives the McDaniel campaign an incentive to collect evidence about possible vote-buying and other potentially unethical behavior by Cochran’s campaign.
So far, there are many reports about shady outreach to Democratic voters supposedly undertaken by Cochran and his allies, particularly done by relatives of former Gov. Haley Barbour.
For example, The Daily Caller reported that Henry Barbour, the head of the Mississippi Conservatives PAC and the nephew of Haley Barbour, paid Democratic operative Mitzi Bickers “to make paid calls to potential Cochran supporters.” Those calls may have spurred many loyal Democrats to cast invalid votes. (read more)