JACKSON — At a 3 p.m. press conference on the Hinds County Courthouse lawn, the local counsel for the Chris McDaniel U.S. senatorial campaign said he is confident that enough fraudulent votes were cast to swing the outcome of the June 24 Republican primary run-off.
“We don’t have to have 6,700 (ineligible votes to challenge the election); however, I would be surprised if we don’t find 6,700,” Tyner said. He did not offer a specific number, but said the campaign has found “thousands” so far, although no specific number is required to file a challenge.
Tyner sent the campaign’s gratitude to “over 50 counties that bent over backwards … to help us gather information on eligible voters,” indicating that not all counties were so helpful to the effort to ensure Cochran won fairly and squarely. He said the campaign has examined contents of ballot boxes in upwards of 70 of the state’s 82 counties so far. Last week, McDaniel offered a $1,000 reward for information about fraudulent voting.
“It is imperative that an ineligible voter not be excluded from this because when I vote and there’s an ineligible voter that also votes, he dilutes my vote. He dilutes your vote,” Tyner told reporters. Tyner said in an interview after the press conference that other allegations of fraudulent voting practices, like the exchange of money for votes, have been reported to authorities.
The Jackson-based attorney isn’t a stranger to tough Mississippi politics.
Tyner ran against Haley Barbour in the 2003 Republican gubernatorial primary—a move many believed was a political trick by the Democrats so that Tyner could wage a tougher campaign against Barbour than incumbent Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove could. During the campaign, the Barbour camp sent out a missive calling his opponent the “Liberal Trial Lawyer and Democrat-Lover Mitch Tyner.”
In a later interview, Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Rickey Cole dismissed the notion that his party had put Tyner up to run against Barbour in 2003. “Mitch has as good a Republican pedigree as any of the Barbours do.”
Tyner, who donated $300 to the Republican Party in 2012, said the McDaniel campaign is viewing the contents of all ballot boxes at every courthouse to determine how many ineligible voters voted in the runoff to help tip the scales toward incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran. The only registered voters in the state who were ineligible under Mississippi state law are those who voted in the June 3 Democratic primary, then showed up for the June 24 Republican run-off.
The review includes all absentee applications and envelopes that the absentee ballots arrived in.
Tyner handed out language from a 1954 Mississippi Supreme Court decision, Sartin v. Barlow, that established the right of political candidates to review election materials, including ballot boxes and their contents, to discover “any wrong or fraud or thievery” of votes.
Previous Comments
How does one find votes cast for a particular candidate? The fact that the secret ballot is a fundamental right of our democracy means that all Tyner can hope to do is find 6,700 illegal votes.
#6429 | Author: jassenscott | Date: Jul 7 2014
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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.
