On August 15, Mississippi election officials determined that the legitimate Reform Party state chair is Ted Weill, not Barbara Dale Washer. As a result, the only Reform Party nominee who will be on the November ballot is Lamonica Magee, for U.S. House, 3rd district. The other faction, which is not recognized by the state, wanted to run Shawn O’Hara for U.S. Senate and wanted to run nominees in the three other U.S. House races.
What did they base their decision on? Probably which faction had less candidates.
Well, both sides presented their evidence to the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. Once the facts came out, it was an open and shut case.
It’s going to be a strange feeling– not seeing Shawn O’Hara’s name on the ballot. At various times, he’s run as a Democrat, a Republican, an independent, and under the Reform Party label.
He could have broken his own record this year, as he’s already lost more elections than Harold Stassen.
This is a “truth is stranger than fiction” moment. THREE PEOPLE decided to conduct a coup, holding a “state convention” at 11AM on a Monday, and placing the ad for it in the newspaper…in six point type. Should it surprise you to know those three people were the only delegates? They then proceeded to “remove” all the elected party officers, install themselves, and nominate a slate of candidates. Just one problem…not one of those three was legally able to call a convention under the party constitution.
Once presented with all the evidence, the election commission had no trouble at all realizing what had happened, and rejected it.