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Serving Southern Miss since 1927
Monday, August 25, 2014
ON CAMPUS
Volume 99 Issue 2
LOCAL
McDaniel legal battle ensues Johnathan Parr Printz Reporter
Mary Sergeant/Printz
Downtown Hattiesburg is one of the many areas students and residents go to for entertainment such as festivals and concerts that take place throughout the year.
sector jobs and entertainment to be one of the Great Places in venues, Hattiesburg was America. Printz Reporter once again recognized as an Hattiesburg is a nationally Move over, Starkville and exceptional place to live by competitive location due to local Oxford: in a national ranking of national press. Earlier this year, community leader involvement, college towns across the United Hattiesburg ranked 24th on a revitalized downtown and States, Hattiesburg was the only greatvaluecolleges.net’s list of 50 dining and entertainment venues Mississippi name to make the list, Great Affordable College Towns available to residents. The earning a spot on livability.com’s in the U.S. Hattiesburg was the University of Southern Mississippi 10 Best College Towns 2014. only Mississippi town to make the itself contributes largely to Due to high scores in ranking list. In 2011, Hattiesburg Historic Hattiesburg’s high placement, as criteria such as student population, Neighborhood was deemed by the affordable housing, education American Planning Association
Mary Beth Wolverton
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NEWS New Payne, more gain Payne center receives new equipment, renovations.
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FEATURE Century Park South Students weigh in on new residence halls.
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Almost two months after losing to incumbent Senator Thad Cochran in the Republican primary, State Senator Chris McDaniel has entered the courts to rectify his political trajectory. McDaniel (R – Ellisville) bested Cochran in the June 3 Republican Primary for U.S. Senate with 49.5 percent of the vote, just shy of the one vote over 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. The June 24 runoff election should have been a blowout for McDaniel but ended with Cochran winning by 7,667 votes. Although no official analysis has been completed, most agree that Cochran won because of his campaign’s focus on the African-American communities in the Delta and Hinds County areas. The New York Times has reported, “The surge in turnout was clearest in overwhelmingly black precincts; turnout sometimes increased by more than 3,000 percent over the initial Republican primary.” McDaniel has said the election was stolen from the true Republicans, claiming that the election was plagued with illegal and irregular votes by Democrats invading the GOP primary. For weeks McDaniel complained about election fraud in various interviews, press releases and campaign e-mails, in which he would ask his supporters to help fund his legal challenge. On Aug. 4 McDaniel started an official challenge to the June 24 primary results with the State Republican Executive Committee. Mitch Tyner, McDaniel’s lawyer, has said that after poring over election results, the campaign has found over 15,000 votes that were cast that should not have been cast. According to the 380-page official challenge, McDaniel
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wants “Hinds County results from the June 24 primary runoff be invalidated and removed from the statewide count because of extensive vote fraud and election law violations permitted by the Hinds County Republican executive committee.” He also wants other counties that have widespread vote fraud and violations to be invalidated. His lawyers have concluded that if the counties are excluded from the count, then McDaniel is unmistakably the nominee elected by the majority of the lawful Republican Party voters, and he wants to be named the nominee. However, if this is unable to happen, McDaniel would be satisfied with a new Republican Party primary runoff election that requires the Republican Party implement proceeding to prevent ‘party raiding,’ as it violates Mississippi law they claim, despite the fact that Mississippi voters do not register by party and have open primaries. The 52-member SREC elected to decline to hear the challenge. “Our 52-member volunteer Republican State Executive Committee has been asked to spend just five hours listening to legal arguments and then overturn a United States Senate primary in which over 360,000 Mississippians cast votes,” said Joe Nosef, chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, in a response to the challenge and a letter sent to Nosef by Tyner. He continued, saying it is neither prudent nor possible in a single day to make such a monumental decision. Instead, he said the only way to ensure election integrity is to have a proper, public review of this matter through the judicial system in a court of law. On Aug. 20, Judge Hollis McGhee, a senior-status, former
See MCDANIEL, 3
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SPORTS Fantasy Football Things to bear in mind for the draft.