Members of the Mississippi G-O-P Executive Committee say it's time to move past last week's Senate runoff and begin focusing on this fall's midterm election. But party leaders must first certify the results of the June 24th election.
At a closed door meeting of the Mississippi's Republican Executive Committee, party officials began the process of finalizing last week's senate runoff to officially certify Senator Thad Cochran the winner. Joe Nosef is the party chair, he says the process wont be done until all counties report the final results of the election.
"What we'll do is the exact same process we did after the June 3, primary." says Nosef. "That we've got a set of number now, once those counties in the coming days update their numbers then were going to give that final number total to the Secretary of State."
Supporters of state Senator Chris McDaniel have been going over voter rolls across the state and say they have found evidence of nearly 33-hundred voting irregularities. This includes those who voted in the Democratic Primary on June 3 and crossed-over to participate in the June 24th runoff. State Senator Michael Watson of Pascagoula represented the McDaniel Campaign at yesterday's proceedings.
"We've heard stories of irregularities all across this state, not just that situation." Watson says. "We've not keyed into anyone specific instance. What we've tried to do is find all of the information out there, and again this is a fact gathering process that we are going through right now and once we've got all of the facts we'll make a decision based on those."
Despite the fact that McDaniel has provided no evidence to substantiate his claim, some supporters believe he will mount a legal challenge. However, party chairman Joe Nosef says it's time to move past the runoff and start focusing on November.
"In think we need to get to the point that either a challenge is filed or it's not." says Nosef. "I think that one of the things that have hurt this process is the rumors and the speculation about different things. I'm really anxious to get this behind us."
The G-O-P has until Monday to certify the results of the June 24th runoff. If McDaniel decides to mount a legal challenge he will have 12 days after the election results are finalized.
