Chris McDaniel Won’t Give Up After GOP Senate Primary Loss
“There is a very specific procedure when ballots are challenged and the grounds for it are very limited,” Matthew Steffey, a professor of election law at Mississippi College School of Law in Jackson, told ABC News.
He noted the challenge must be done in person as the ballots were being cast last Tuesday.
“The reason the day-of challenge is so important is…it’s not enough to say ‘Hey we went through the books and found voter irregularities,’ you’ve got to show who these people voted for,” Steffey said. “You can’t just speculate that all the irregular votes went to your opponent so ‘then we are going to re-do the election,’…that’s the thing with voting, it’s anonymous and private and you can’t make a court case by speculating who they voted for.”
“These irregularities pale in comparison to Florida in 2000 and then the Supreme Court of the United States said stop the recount, stop the challenges, certify the election,” Steffey noted. “I don’t think they’ve show anything.”
There seems to be no precedent for the kind of legal challenge McDaniel and his supporters are attempting to mount. The McDaniel campaign has not formally begun any legal action, but conservative voter watch dog group True the Vote filed suit against the Mississippi Republican Party and the Mississippi Secretary of State on Tuesday. They are calling for the state to preserve and give them access to election records, before the election is certified. The McDaniel campaign supports the effort.
WPRO
7/3/14
Magnolia Tribune
