BREAKING! There May Be Enough Invalidated Votes to Overturn Cochran Victory

[Bigun]

WOW, Mark Mayfield killed himself... the plot thickens:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/27/tea-party-official-arrested-over-photos-sen-cochran-wife-dies-suicide-suspected/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29

Getting more curious by the minute!

[Bigun]

[katzenjammer]

Meet Mitzi Bickers: A scandal-plagued Democratic operative worked the black vote for Cochran

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/381365/meet-mitzi-bickers-eliana-johnson

Meet what appears to be one of the keys to Thad Cochran’s black-turnout operation, Mitzi Bickers.

She is, from all appearances, something of a renaissance woman: She is not only the pastor of Atlanta’s Emmanuel Baptist Church but also a former president of the Atlanta school board, a former construction-company executive, and a Democratic staffer and political strategist with a checkered past. Last year, she left her job as a senior adviser to Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed after news surfaced that she had filed a fraudulent financial-disclosure statement.

In a bizarre turn of events, it seems that Bickers was in the middle of a bitterly contested Republican Senate primary. Two Atlanta-based entities affiliated with Bickers, The Bickers Group and the Pirouette Company, were paid thousands of dollars to make robo-calls on Senator Cochran’s behalf by a super PAC that backed Cochran in his bid for reelection. Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission show that Mississippi Conservatives, the political-action committee run by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour’s nephew Henry, paid the groups a total of $44,000 for get-out-the-vote “phone services.”

On Tuesday, Cochran narrowly defeated his insurgent challenger, Chris McDaniel, in a runoff election that was nasty and personal from the outset. In fact, McDaniel has yet to concede the race, saying that he is looking into “rampant” voting irregularities and calling on state election officials to release voter data.

When the June 3 primary election was thrown into a runoff, the Cochran campaign began looking to expand the electorate. That meant courting Mississippi’s large African-American population. The campaign deployed volunteers throughout the state’s Delta region, which has a concentrated African-American population, and even hired Democratic operative James “Scooby Doo” Watson to lend a hand. It worked: Turnout in the Delta increased nearly 40 percent on Tuesday.

Though not a Mississippi native, Bickers is no stranger to get-out-the-vote efforts. She has worked in Atlanta politics for years and, as a campaign operative for Kasim Reed, who came from behind to win the city’s mayoralty in 2009, Bickers, who is African American and openly gay, worked to get black voters to the polls. Reed won by just over 700 votes and, in the wake of his victory, the former executive director of the Georgia Democratic party called Bickers “the most well-known and well-respected” political operative in the state when it comes to turning out the vote.

Though the content of the robo-calls Bickers placed on Cochran’s behalf is unknown — Henry Barbour says he never heard the final calls, and that her efforts were “far more” about making live calls than robo-calls  — it makes sense that the Barbour clan would reach out to her in an election that required Cochran and his allies to execute a near-perfect voter-turnout strategy, particularly among Democrats and African Americans. Henry Barbour says Bickers was referred to him by Tony Yarber, the mayor of Jackson, Miss., to whom she donated $4,000 when he ran for office earlier this year. Like Henry’s uncle Haley, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the force that loomed over Cochran’s reelection effort, Bickers is a hardened, southern politician who has learned how to win political grudge matches in a city and a state with a reputation for corruption and double dealing. 

The Cochran supporters’ arrangement with Bickers is especially notable, given the role of racial politicking generally and of one sketchy robo-call ​in particular that raised the ire of tea-party voters as the race drew to a close. Near the end of the runoff campaign, a recording came to light — it was first reported by investigative reporter Charles Johnson – of a racially tinged call that urged voters to combat the Tea Party by casting a ballot for Cochran. It accused the Tea Party of “disrespectful treatment of the country’s first African-American president.” The Cochran campaign has denied any connection to the call, and Barbour says the call was not from the Mississippi Conservatives PAC or from Bickers. He believes, he says, that Bickers placed two automated calls to African-American households.

** more at link above **

[Bigun]

Great find Katz!

[katzenjammer]

Great find Katz!

Found it in Levin's Twitter feed.   

[Bigun]

Found it in Levin's Twitter feed.   

Quote from the article: "Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission show that Mississippi Conservatives, the political-action committee run by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour’s nephew Henry, paid the groups a total of $44,000 for get-out-the-vote “phone services.”"

I'd say that is pretty damning evidence!

[katzenjammer]

Quote from the article: "Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission show that Mississippi Conservatives, the political-action committee run by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour’s nephew Henry, paid the groups a total of $44,000 for get-out-the-vote “phone services.”"

I'd say that is pretty damning evidence!

Yes, the whole article contains a lot...

Mississippi Conservatives, the pro-Cochran PAC, paid the Pirouette Company $19,660 for robo-calls in the last week of the runoff, and Pirouette has its own colorful history.

And, apparently, for Thad Cochran. Federal Election Commission reports indicate that the Mississippi Conservatives PAC paid The Bickers Group $25,000 last week for “GOTV phone services” — even though, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s website, The Bickers Group dissolved in September 2012.

[GourmetDan]

You can be sure that (because Cochran's people targeted the delta-region) there are plenty of illegal votes there.

Oops...

[katzenjammer]

Here is one voting fraud lawsuit for Hinds County:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/231591167/Swindall-v-Wyatt

Edit: remove editorial comment on nature of lawsuit.

[Bigun]

Here is one voting fraud lawsuit for Hinds County, shows GOP official advising Dems to break the law.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/231591167/Swindall-v-Wyatt

The first of many I hope!

[katzenjammer]

The first of many I hope!

I edited my post above, I see that Wyatt is a Democrat.  (This filing doesn't appear to implicate any one beyond Wyatt in its present form.)

[katzenjammer]

'The worst race-baiting ads I've ever seen': Radio ads in Mississippi senate race accused tea party candidate of Ku Klux Klan links and drove black Democrats to vote against him in a REPUBLICAN primary

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2672565/The-worst-race-baiting-ads-Ive-seen-Radio-ads-Mississippi-senate-race-accused-tea-party-candidate-Ku-Klux-Klan-links-drove-black-Democrats-vote-against-REPUBLICAN-primary.html

- Radio ads exclusively obtained by MailOnline show how forces loyal to Sen. Thad Cochran used claims of racism to get black Democrats to cross over and cast primary run-off votes against a tea party Republican
- Ads were paid for by a far-left former marketing executive, and sources say the funds were provided by a super PAC created by former Republican Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour
- The middle-woman is a preacher and former adviser to Atlanta's mayor who was forced to resign her political post last year after she filed untruthful financial disclosures
- The ads, heard for the first time here, claim that if Cochran's tea party challenger, Chris McDaniels, were to win the primary, poor black Mississippians would lose food stamps and other government benefits

Audio of ads are at link.

[katzenjammer]

Chris McDaniel Rushes to Review Ballots from Tuesday's Election

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/27/McDaniel-Rushes-To-Review-Ballots-From-Tuesday-s-Election

Boyle's article is loaded with a lot of information, small sample:


To make matters even more interesting, Democrats in Hinds County are accusing Cochran’s Hinds County Republicans of illegal activity.

In an interview with Breitbart News on Thursday, McInnis--the Hinds County Democrats' top official--said that Perry asked Democrats to help him "break the law" by working together to accept Democratic voters who voted in the June 3 Democratic primary and in Tuesday's GOP runoff.

Charging that Perry "has never ran a legal election in this state" because "he was never qualified by the Secretary of State's office," McInnis alleged that Perry asked him and county Democrats not to share records of who voted in each primary on June 3. The practice--called "switching the books"--is where, heading into a runoff, Democrats and Republicans swap poll books that list which voters voted in the respective parties' recent primaries.

To start a primary, since Mississippi doesn't technically have party registration, Democrats and Republicans each begin with their own lists of all registered voters. As voters cast ballots, poll workers write "VOTED" next to the names of people who vote in their primaries. If the process heads to a runoff in either or both parties' primaries, the Democrats switch their books with Republicans and vice versa so poll workers in the runoffs can ensure nobody who voted in the Democratic primary votes in the GOP runoff and vice versa.

"The Democrats get the Republican book and the Republicans get the Democrat book to protect against crossover voting," McInnis said. "In Mississippi and a lot of other states, if you voted in the Republican primary, you must only vote in the Republican runoff; you can't switch."

McInnis alleged in an interview with Breitbart News that Connie Cochran, Sen. Cochran's sister-in-law and the Perry and Hinds County election commissioner, asked local Democrats not to switch the poll books.

"In the state of Mississippi, you have to take steps to prevent crossover voting," McInnis said. "If you voted Democrat in the Democratic primary, you can't vote in the Republican runoff. The way we protect that is we switch the poll books. Pete Perry and Connie Cochran, who's the chair of the election commission, called us and asked us not to switch the books--which is a clear violation of the law."

McInnis told Breitbart News he personally witnessed at least one Hinds County precinct--Precinct 16--where the books had not been switched during the runoff day. "I went out to a precinct to make sure the laws were being followed, and I got there at about 4 o'clock p.m.," McInnis said. "They had not switched the books, under the influence of the young Republican and Democratic workers there. I demanded that they switch these books immediately. The Democratic poll manager there switched the books at 4 o'clock that evening.”

McInnis said he thinks Perry engaged in this practice throughout the entire county, but he can't be sure because Democrats were only allowed inside 15 of the county's 109 precincts on election day. Two Democrat candidates for the U.S. House third congressional district in Mississippi headed to a runoff, and while Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) represents most of Hinds County, the third congressional district has 15 precincts inside Hinds County.

"I think this was county-wide, but we only had 15 precincts because we only had a small runoff in a very small part of the county; we only had 15 precincts in the eastern part of the county," McInnis said. "The rest of the county had only the Republican runoff, so we had no authority to go to Republican polling places and do anything about it. But in the places we could, we did--because we did not want to be accused of anything with the Republican Party."

When asked how Perry could have succeeded in not switching the books--since he and other Democrats refused to cooperate with his request on the grounds that they believed it was illegal--McInnis replied that he worked with Sen. Cochran's sister-in-law--the election commissioner in Hinds County--to get the job done. "Connie Cochran is the election commissioner," McInnis said.

[Dexter]

The votes don't matter when you can just buy the politician anyway.

[musiclady]

The votes don't matter when you can just buy the politician anyway.

Usually the left has a corner on this kind of corruption, but obviously the infection is now deep inside (some) of the Republican party as well.

[DCPatriot]

Let's face it.

Wearing the "Tea Party" label, comes with a cost.

Who among us here wouldn't have done EXACTLY what the democrats did on behalf of Mr. Cochran....if, in your heart, you believed the Tea Party in power was truly going to hurt you?  Figuratively, of course.

Of course, not being allowed to review the registration rolls and compare them with actual votes trumps walking door to door asking "folks" to cross over to defeat the TP candidate.

My point is the concept, IMO is smart politics.   But what can you do with cheaters in control of the voter rolls?

[240B]

"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." (Joseph Stalin)