McDaniel attorney says fraud reports pouring in

A lawyer for Chris McDaniel said campaign canvassers started going through records at every courthouse statewide on Monday and he's confident McDaniel can successfully overturn the June 24 GOP runoff.

The Thad Cochran campaign countered that few voting irregularities are being found and the vote should stand.

"As you know there have been lots of allegations and lots of reports of voter fraud – all types of calls are coming into the campaign and coming into my law office, and we are following up on all those leads making sure the integrity of this election is not compromised," said Mitch Tyner, an attorney for McDaniel and former Republican candidate for governor. "In fact, as we've gone through this process, we are surprised by the amount of evidence that continues to come forward that shows us there has indeed been election fraud in this case."

Tyner said he is uncertain the number of ineligible votes the campaign has found. McDaniel's campaign reported 4,900 late last week, and McDaniel in television interviews said 5,000.

The McDaniel campaign has said a majority of these are people who voted in the June 3 Democratic primary, then crossed over June 24 and voted in the Republican runoff, which is prohibited by state law.

"I know there are several thousand that are absolute ineligible voters," Tyner said. "… Later this week we should have some idea what all they've found."

Both campaigns have people at courthouses across the state today, going through poll books and other records.

Cochran spokesman Jordan Russell on Monday refuted the McDaniel campaign's claim there are thousands of illegal votes and says the number appears to be within normal margins of election errors.

"We have representatives at all 82 courthouses today to monitor the review of ballot boxes and have been pleased with the results," Russell said. "The county by county results reported thus far are revealing an extremely low number of crossover votes from the June 24th election. As the process moves forward, the conversation is shifting from wild, baseless accusations to hard facts. As we have said from the beginning, the run-off results are clear: the majority of Mississippians voted for Senator Thad Cochran."

Russell said he didn't have totals, but listed the number of potential crossover votes found in four counties: Perry, 1; Lauderdale, 7; Pontotoc, 3; Leake, 5.

Neither Tyner nor McDaniel campaign spokesman Noel Fritsch could say when a legal challenge would come. But Fritsch said "A challenge certainly does look likely … any day now."

Last week, McDaniel put offered up to 15 $1,000 rewards for people who provide information leading to voter fraud arrest and conviction.

Tyner said Monday the campaign is just beginning to look at the 19,000 absentee ballots in the race "we know that is very ripe for fraud."

"I can't remember the exact quote, but I think it was (Hattiesburg) Mayor DuPree who said that no way that voter ID is going to stop much fraud in Mississippi," Tyner said. "In fact, he said if you want to stop fraud in Mississippi, you want to get on top of absentee ballots, that's where the fraud is occurring."

Both campaigns thanked the states' circuit clerks, whom they say are helping them go through records.