Chris McDaniel wants a court to exclude 25,000 Hinds County votes — plus those from several other counties — from the June 24 runoff results and declare him the winner of the U.S. Senate GOP primary. McDaniel filed a lawsuit against incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran in Jones County Circuit Court on Thursday, the legal deadline to file.If he’s not declared the winner, tea party-backed McDaniel asks the court to order the state Republican Party to hold a new statewide primary and require it to prevent “party raiding” by Democrats.In a written statement Thursday, McDaniel said his legal challenge details “rampant election integrity problems” including maintenance of ballot boxes, fraudulent votes, insecure ballot boxes and election records, wrongly accepted absentees, loosely documented security of voting machines and other problems.
Also in a written statement, Cochran’s attorneys at the Butler Snow law firm said they look forward to court. “After many weeks of posturing and press conferences, and political stunts, we have finally reached the point where this matter will be settled by the courts,” the statement said. “… We look forward to holding the McDaniel campaign to the burden of proof the law requires ….”
… The court doesn’t have a deadline to decide the case, but state law urges primary challenges be resolved before ballots for the November general election are printed. Sample ballots are supposed to be delivered to county clerks by Sept. 10. Absentee ballots are supposed to be available for military and others starting Sept. 20.
Full Article: McDaniel sues to be declared winner.