White Mississippi Republican continues to contest narrow loss to Black Democrat, refuses to accept defeat

The former incumbent State Representative Ashley Henley is asking the GOP-dominated Mississippi House to overturn the election results because of irregularities at the polling stations.

State Rep. Ashley Henley, a Southaven, Mississippi Republican (L), is asking the GOP-led House to overturn the results of the election she lost to Democrat Hester Jackson-McCray (R). (Photos courtesy of Henley’s official election and Jackson-McCray /Facebook)

A white Mississippi Republican candidate for the Mississippi state representative is big mad that she lost and now wants to appeal the victory of her Black Democrat opponent.

A month after her narrow loss toDemocratic challenger Hester Jackson-McCray, the former incumbent Ashley Henley is asking the GOP-dominated Mississippi House to overturn the Nov. 5 election results. According to Mississippi Today, Jackson-McCray clinched victory by 14 votes, but Henley believed that the ballot box examination failed “to adhere to proper election procedures to insure a fair and legitimate election” under state law.

“There were irregularities that happened, absolutely, documented, very much so that bring into question the legitimacy of the election results,” Henley said. “That is without question.”

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Mississippi Today reported that Henley has several grievances regarding the ballots, which include failure to collect voter signatures in one of the district’s six precincts, lack of an incident report detailing why the signatures weren’t collected, claiming to have discovered two uncounted ballots where her name was marked, voter signature receipts not stapled to the corresponding pages of the voter receipt book, among other claims.

Jackson-McCray said that though Henley has a right to appeal any technicalities, she was still beaten in a fair election.

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“Elections are elections. It’s not a guaranteed position,” Jackson-McCray said. “Anybody could come along and beat you. I just beat you fair and square. Hard work just beat you this time. She has the right to go through the technicalities, but I think if people read this notice she’s putting out, it looks like she’s arguing that her own party didn’t manage the election right. The election was run by Republicans. The DeSoto County election commissioners are Republicans. The Secretary of State is a Republican.”

Unfortunately, it would not be a surprise if GOP officials decide in Henley’s favor because four years ago, the GOP-run House voted to unseat a Democrat incumbent in favor of a Republican despite the Democrat official winning a tiebreaker.