AP Report on Elections

(AP) Nov. 3, 2010 Childers and Taylor were re-elected last night in two close races. Childers will be starting his 3rd term and Taylor will be on his 12th term. Both US Representatives had strong competition but in the end the two incumbents prevailed. Childers faced off Alan Nunnelee in the first District that has struggled through the recession. The first District has suffered high taxes, closed factories and a drop in sales of 40%. Many thought that tea party groups would really make a difference and get the vote out but the turn out was just as low in this midterm election as it had been in previous years. The conservative groups in Mississippi started having tea parties last spring but apparently did little to effect the outcome of this contest. Almost a year ago there was a Ballot Initiative that might have upset these races. It was reported that Mississippi suffers from about 6% voter fraud. In an unprecedented move, State Senator Fillengane, sponsored the initiative but failed to get enough signatures to get the Measure on the Ballot. If passed, the Measure would have required voters to show an ID card before voting, virtually eliminating the deceased from voting, non-us citizen voting and put a stop to people voting multiple times. Although the conservative groups had grown to 10,000 members, the Ballot Initiative came up just short of the required signatures to get on the Ballot. The conservative groups showed no interest in an organized effort to collect the signatures. All the States surrounding Mississippi require an ID to vote. The results were Childers 51% Nunnelee 46%; Taylor 51%, Tegerdine 46%.