The campaign of Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel announced Thursday that is offering multiple rewards of $1,000 for evidence of voter fraud in last month’s GOP Senate run-off.
“The challenge is aimed at funding fifteen $1,000 rewards which will be paid to individuals who provide evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in voter fraud on or leading up to the June 24, 2014, Republican primary runoff election in Mississippi,” a release from the McDaniel campaign said.
McDaniel’s campaign is calling it its “Election Integrity Challenge and Voter Fraud Reward.”
Incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran, a Republican, defeated McDaniel in the state’s contentious Republican run-off. McDaniel’s supporters argue that defeat happened because Cochran’s campaign wooed black Democrats who crossed party lines in the state’s open primary.
The offer for a reward from McDaniel’s campaign comes after an activist aligned with the McDaniel campaign published an interview with a man this week who claimed the Cochran campaign “told me to offer blacks fifteen dollars each and to vote for Thad.”
Cochran’s campaign has vehemently denied the allegations they bought votes, though they acknowledge they paid people with cash for door-to-door efforts.
McDaniel has not yet conceded the election; his campaign is in the process of examining whether some of the Democrats who voted in the run-off were ineligible to participate in the contest because they had already voted in the Democratic primary.
“The most important issue here is maintaining the integrity of the electoral process here in Mississippi,” McDaniel said. “These allegations of criminal behavior on behalf of Cochran are troubling, and any evidence of fraud will be turned over to the authorities to be investigated.”
Cochran’s campaign attempted to hold a conference call with the media on Wednesday to dismiss the efforts of the McDaniel campaign — challenging them to “put up or shut up” — but was forced to cancel it midway through after someone highjacked the call with provocative questions about race.
