Perry has been at the center of a possible challenge in the Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate. Supporters of challenger Chris McDaniel have been reviewing voting records in Hinds County since incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran won the June 24 runoff.
The McDaniel campaign says they have found more than 1,000 illegally cast votes in Hinds County, most centered around voters who allegedly cast a ballot in the June 3 Democratic primary and then voted in the June 24 Republican primary runoff. Perry, however, says that most of the votes cited by McDaniel supporters were actually clerical errors made by poll workers that were later corrected by the poll workers themselves.
McDaniel supporters have criticized Perry’s involvement with the elections because his firm received $60,000 during the primary from Mississippi Conservatives PAC, which supports Cochran, to help turn out votes for the incumbent. In Mississippi, political parties and not the state or county run the primary elections.