Mississippians do not register with a party. We are free to choose each year which primary we want to vote in. That said if you vote in a primary then you can not vote in the opposite party's run off. If you don't vote in the primary at all then you can vote in the run off.
Poll workers are trained to prevent people from voting in the wrong run off.
Perry said more than 500 of Hinds County’s poll workers were trained not to allow people who voted in the Democratic primary vote in the republican runoff. He also said Republican poll books were switched out with Democratic poll books so poll workers would have a quick reference for who voted in the primary and who did not. - See more at: http://www.newsms.fm/...
Mississippi doesn't have a strong Democratic Party. Many years Democrats don't even have candidates running, therefore if they don't vote in the Republican Primary they never get a say in who they wish to represent them, as the Republican Primary decides the race.
When you vote in the primary you are given either a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot and the poll worker marks the book to indicate you voted. If a run off occurs because a race is too close to call then in this case the Republicans are given the Democratic poll book so the poll workers can identify those ineligible to vote and turn them away.
The Republican Primary was particularly interesting this year as former Congressman Gene Taylor (D) was running for Congress as a Republican. Many Democratic voters chose to vote in the Republican primary in order to support him.
McDaniel isn't contesting the fact that Thad Cochran got more votes, he is contesting the right of those his party has labeled black liberal democrats to vote and has lambasted Cochran for actively seeking to broaden his voting base. Legally anyone who did not vote in the Democratic Primary June 3rd was eligible to vote for Cochran.
The so called voting irregularities seem to be manufactured by McDaniel's and his supporters.
The McDaniel campaign claimed that at precinct 14 there were 192 “illegal votes” – people that they claim had voted in the Democrat primary but voted in the Republican runoff. Perry says that would be impossible because according to the certified results of the June 3 Democratic primary, there were only 37 total Democrat primary voters at that particular precinct.
Perry also said a large number of the “claimed irregularities” were instances where poll workers marked the wrong date and it was corrected by the poll manager using the correct procedure and initialed.
“Ms. Overscheld was aware of this and other similar instances when she made her statement yesterday. She had inflated her own numbers to make it appear worse than they had actually found. They had by their count somewhere of 772 instances in Hinds County. She said it was over 800. Later the candidate inflated the numbers again on national TV saying it was over a thousand votes in this county. Elections are about specifics not generalities,” said Perry.
- See more at: http://www.newsms.fm/...
At this point is really looks as if McDaniel and his supporters are just trying to stir up trouble.
"Looking at the poll books, we found some evidence we are concerned about," Overschelde said. "The investigation is still preliminary."
But Pete Perry, the Hinds County Republican Executive Committee chairman, said 200 votes were put in the wrong column and then corrected by poll workers at Fondren Presbyterian Church. There were also 75 to 80 similar votes corrected at Precinct 34.
"They know that there are errors that happened that day, and the poll workers corrected it," Perry said. "They are well aware of it. They are just trying to make up numbers to make it look a lot better than it is. ... I think they are trying to stir up and trying to make people believe there were irregularities when there weren't."
McDaniel supporters pore over ballots
They are now trying to say African Americans were
paid to vote for Cochran, but again they have no proof.
There was a report that some blacks were paid money by a political action committee to get black voters to vote for Cochran in the runoff election.
But Worth Thomas, owner of a consulting/lobbyist firm, said black leadership paid for their own effort to support Cochran. He said the Rev. Ronnie Crudup and others had a fundraiser in which about 200 people attended to show their support to vote for Cochran.
"I resent that people somehow think we can't decide for ourselves," Thomas said. "I can assure you no one was paid to vote for Senator Cochran."
McDaniel supporters pore over ballots
6:18 PM PT: This is getting more interesting by the minute. Apparently McDaniel shouldn't have been accusing Democratic voters of wrong doing but Republican Party officials.
" Ricky Cole, the state Democrats’ chairman, said it really wasn't the end of it because Perry somehow managed not to switch the books in several precincts across the county. "We have no way of knowing how many it happened at because we didn't have the authority to go into most of the precincts in Hinds County," Cole said, noting that because of the fact that the third congressional district was happening in just 15 Hinds County precincts, the Democrats only saw what happened there.
Cole also said that he thinks not switching the books could "absolutely"
have happened in scores of Mississippi's 82 counties and more than 1,800 precincts. "This process had to be honored in every precinct in Mississippi, all more than 1,800 precincts":
Chris McDaniel Rushes to Review Ballots from Tuesday's Election
http://www.breitbart.com/...
6:22 PM PT: A quick note there were no Democratic party run offs in some areas so the Democratic officials had no authority to go into those precincts. The Republican Party is solely responsible for the integrity of their primary and run offs.