Chris McDaniel’s last hopes hinge on nine more votes — in a courtroom
Reached by phone on Thursday, the campaign’s colorful spokesman, Noel Fritsch, explained that the campaign had a “massive endeavor” in front of it with the legal challenge, hinging upon what he described as thousands of pages of evidence that authorities (and the media) would need to wade through. As has been the case for weeks, Fritsch declined to describe that evidence in any detail or share any of it, though he implied it involved both illegal votes and illegal campaign behavior on the part of the campaign of Sen. Thad Cochran. Fritsch and the McDaniel campaign are clearly confident that, once presented with the evidence, those nine jurors would grant McDaniel a third chance.
Fritsch’s formulation was optimistic. We turned (again) to Matt Steffey, a professor of law at the Mississippi College School of Law to explain how McDaniel’s challenge would move forward. We made this flowchart from what he told us; it’s explained below.
The first step is that McDaniel will present his evidence to the executive committee of the Republican party of Mississippi. No one expects that body — the members of whom seem inclined to side with Cochran in general, beyond any exotic voter fraud allegations — to find in favor of McDaniel. It could, resulting in the new election McDaniel wants. But it almost certainly won’t.
Washington Post
7/25/14
