Who would think Tea Partiers would do anything suspicious like enter a courthouse where the ballots were stored through a mysteriously ajar door and accidentally lock themselves in with all of the ballots? Why, that would be election tampering! Surely a teabagger like Chris McDaniel or a staffer wouldn't do something like that, right?
The Hinds County Sheriff's Department is investigating why three people, including a high-ranking Chris McDaniel campaign official, were found locked in the Hinds County Courthouse in Jackson hours after an election official says the building was closed early Wednesday morning.
Hinds County Sheriff's Department spokesman Othor Cain said investigators are trying to figure out how Janis Lane, Scott Brewster and Rob Chambers entered the courthouse. They were inside until about 3:45 a.m., Cain said.
Brewster is a former coordinator of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's Mississippi operation and is currently McDaniel's campaign coalition coordinator.
"There are conflicting stories from the three of them, which began to raise the red flag, and we're trying to get to the bottom of it," Cain said. "No official charges have been filed at this point, but we don't know where the investigation will lead us."
But wait! There's more. There's always more with these yahoos.
McDaniel campaign spokesman Noel Fritsch issued a statement late Wednesday saying the campaign "sent people to the Hinds courthouse to obtain the outstanding numbers and observe the count." The statement reiterated the people were allowed in by "uniformed personnel" and then being locked inside.
"Predictably, a close Cochran ally wants to make hay out of this. Sadly, the Cochran campaign wants to make this election about anything but issues. Mississippians deserve better than this sort of distraction politics," Fritsch said in the statement.
Cochran campaign spokesman Jordan Russell said, "It is astonishing that the same people who are up to their eyeballs in four felons breaking into a nursing home are also up to their eyeballs in potentially breaking in somewhere else again."
"And this time they can't deny that a paid staffer is involved," Russell said. "At some point you got to say enough is enough. How many more arrests of allies and McDaniel team members before we can say this has gone too far?"
Tell me more about observing the count when everyone had left for the night and these folks were still in the building?
Election officials said they had wrapped up and gone home by about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Hinds County Election Commissioner Connie Cochran said security employees told her that Lane, Rob Chambers and Scott Brewster went to the courthouse about 12:30 a.m. to observe the election process.
What were they observing if everyone left an hour before they arrived? And then there was the convenient unlocked door.
The three walked around the building until they found an unlocked door, which locked behind them once they went inside, Cochran said. The trio claimed they walked around the courthouse for about 90 minutes looking for a way to get out and then called Perry, Cochran said.
The Hinds County Sheriff's Office sent deputies to the courthouse after receiving the call from Perry. Othor Cain, the department's spokesman, said the ballots were locked up, but Perry told the newspaper that not all of the precinct information was sealed because the process of counting affidavit ballots was to continue Wednesday.
Something stinks to high heaven here. If Mississippi voters elect McDaniel, they deserve whatever crimes he inflicts on them.
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