McDaniel challenge of election delayed
A lawyer for Chris McDaniel on Friday said a legal challenge of his loss to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran has been “slightly delayed” and will probably come next week, more than a month after the June 24 Republican primary runoff.
Attorney Mitch Tyner recently said he expected to file a challenge of the primary within 10 days, which would have been by Friday.
On Friday, Tyner said in an email, “We’ve been slightly delayed in getting some of the data that we want to include in the challenge and expect to file it next week.”
Neither Tyner nor the campaign responded to requests for more information.
Tea party-backed McDaniel and the campaign have, in turns, said they have ample proof to overturn the election and that they’ve faced “roadblocks” from the GOP establishment in gathering evidence. Tyner said nearly two weeks ago he has “thousands of pages” of evidence including vote buying, ballot stuffing, false affidavit ballots and other fraud and irregularities.
On Friday, state Republican Party Chairman Joe Nosef said, “Since some have said they believe this election was stolen, every day that goes by without either a challenge or a concession is bad for everyone involved, no matter which side of this primary someone happened to be on.”
A spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office said there is no deadline under state law for a candidate to file a statewide primary election challenge.
McDaniel has continued to campaign across the state after his loss to Cochran and ask supporters for donations to help him overturn last month’s primary.
The Cochran campaign has said McDaniel should “put up or shut up” about voter fraud and an election challenge and said Cochran is focused on the November general election, in which he faces Democratic former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers and Reform Party candidate Shawn O’Hara.
The delay announced Friday came a day after the state Supreme Court rejected McDaniel’s request for a rehearing on its earlier rejection of his request for access to poll books without voters’ personal information blacked out.
McDaniel has said his campaign needs to see voters’ birth dates to differentiate among people with the same or similar names. He said he shouldn’t have to pay for copies of the records with info redacted. McDaniel accused Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann — who endorsed Cochran — of intentionally misleading county officials about access to records. McDaniel also has sued numerous county clerks over the past few weeks.
On Friday, Hosemann praised the latest Supreme Court ruling.
“Circuit clerks, the attorney general, our agency, and the Mississippi Supreme Court, for the second time, have all supported 1.8 million Mississippians’ right to privacy when they cast their ballot,” Hosemann said. “Taxpayers should not have to pay for photocopying poll books for a candidate’s party primary contest.”
McDaniel had not announced any campaign events Friday after finishing his statewide “Truth and Justice” tour earlier in the week.
On Facebook, McDaniel’s messages to supporters included, “… desperate supporters of Thad Cochran recruited Democrats to come vote in the Republican runoff. The result was thousands of voting irregularities and a stolen election. Please help us by making a contribution or signing up to volunteer … This election was a sham, and I will fight against it until the very end.”
Contact Geoff Pender at (601) 961-7266 or gpender@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @GeoffPender on Twitter.