Hinds County Republican Party chairman Pete Perry was arrested for DUI over the weekend. Perry, one of the key figures during the controversial Mississippi run-off election on June 24, diminished concerns of voter fraud in Mississippi as “clerical errors.”
Senator Thad Cochran faced Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel in the tight election to determine the next Senatorial candidate. Cochran won by a small margin, after aggressively seeking the black Democrat vote.
McDaniel refused to concede the election, and has since found evidence of “at least 3,300 ineligible votes.”
After a campaign volunteer for state Senator Chris McDaniel found that a ballot review in Hinds County, Mississippi turned up 1,200 irregularities, Perry claimed that “wild accusations” were really “mistakes made by poll workers…not illegal voting.”
The story from the Clarion Ledger also quoted Senior Cochran campaign adviser Austin Barbour as saying, “I have no problem with the process they’re going through, but it’s over and it’s time to move on.” Additionally, Hinds County Supervisor Robert Graham said, “The McDaniel campaign needs to get over it and move on.”
According to the article,
“The tea party has also taken issue with Perry’s affiliation with Cochran’s campaign. A pro-Cochran political action committee hired Perry’s political consulting firm to conduct get-out-the-vote work between the primary and runoff. Tea party officials claim Perry’s role overseeing the GOP primary and runoff is compromised by that transaction. Perry denied any impropriety.”
As reported at the Examiner, the voter integrity group “True the Vote” filed a lawsuit against the Mississippi Secretary of State and the Republican Party of Mississippi. A part of their claim seeks “immediate access to voting records to inspect for possible illegal voting.”
According to the article,
“In order to convince Democrats to vote for Cochran, McDaniel was falsely slandered as a racist who was trying to suppress the votes of black Americans and take away food stamps and other government services. The insulting campaign was an embarrassment to the party that was founded to empower black voters.”
Another key player in the scandal, Cochran campaign staffer Saleem Baird, is accused of running a cash for votes scheme. He evidently deleted his Twitter account today.
The Democrats who helped push Cochran over the edge will be expecting “some reciprocity,” as stated by Derrick Johnson, the president of the Mississippi NAACP. “Our advocacy towards his office is to support amending the Voting Rights Act,” Johnson told the Huffington Post. He continued, “free of any conditions such as voter ID.”
Yesterday, Politico reported that the Congressional Black Caucus also expects favors from Cochran.
Hinds County Republican Party chairman Pete Perry was “arrested by Carthage Police around 8:25 p.m. [Saturday] and was later released on bond that same night.”
