Geoff Pender

The Clarion-Ledger

UPDATED: With statements from McDaniel spokesman Noel Fritsch

As Chris McDaniel's team continues to scour voting records to add to an expected legal challenge of his loss to Thad Cochran, it has listed McDaniel's lead lawyer in the challenge, and his wife, as irregular votes that should be tossed out.

McDaniel lawyer Mitchell H. "Mitch" Tyner Sr. on Monday sent Cochran's attorneys additional affidavits listing hundreds more

alleged illegal or irregular votes from the June 24 runoff.

Problem is, Tyner and his wife, Sloane Tyner, were flagged by a McDaniel volunteer as "CROSSOVER/IRREGULAR VOTING" in one of the new affidavits claiming problems with Madison County voting.

The affidavit says that with Tyner and his wife's votes, records showed "voted written in margin and on June 24."

It would appear, given McDaniel's assertion that he really won the election by 25,000 votes and other claims, that the Tyners are alleged to have improperly voted for Cochran.

Cochran's campaign and lawyers, and some election officials, have refuted McDaniel's claim that there were thousands of illegal or irregular votes in the June 24 runoff. They say McDaniel volunteers have found "irregularities" where none exist and that the election, which Cochran won by 7,667 votes, was fair and had no more problems than the human error involved in all elections.

Others the McDaniel team has listed as being illegal or irregular votes in McDaniel's challenge include Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann and Cochran campaign spokesman Jordan Russell, both of whom claim their votes were not improper or irregular.

McDaniel spokesman Noel Fritsch said the Tyners' names being included are a clear indication that there were problems and irregularities in Madison County voting and record keeping.

"At some point, a poll worker crossed out nearly every voter's name and indicated that they'd not voted on June 3 but did vote on June 24," Fritsch said in a statement. "This shows that the book was not switched. The fact that even the Republican votes were crossed out is further evidence the county did not properly institute the 'swapping of the books' to obviate crossover voting."

McDaniel earlier Tuesday was en route to meet with Tyner and others and said he expects he will file his legal challenge of the election on Wednesday. The deadline to file such a challenge is Thursday.

Challenge documents McDaniel has released to date include affidavits from volunteers who claimed to have found thousands of illegal or "irregular" votes. These include about 3,500 alleged "crossovers" -- people who voted in the Democratic primary June 3 and were, arguably, prohibited from voting in the Republican runoff on June 24. McDaniel's team also claims there were 2,275 improper absentee ballots and more than 9,500 "irregular" votes.

A written complaint McDaniel filed with the state GOP says "Fraudulent voting, insecure ballot boxes and election records and other violations ... contaminate the entire runoff election."

Cochran campaign adviser Austin Barbour on Tuesday said the listing of the Tyners' votes "is another example of how absurd their claims are."

Contact Geoff Pender at (601) 961-7266 or

gpender@jackson.gannett.com

. Follow @GeoffPender on Twitter