Yes, election fraud is a problem. But it’s being practiced by Republicans, via racist gerrymandering, vote suppression and more direct means—like the incredible shenanigans being revealed in the #NC09 congress race @McCreadyForNC lost by 905 votes. Read.
washingtonpost.com/politics/certi…
washingtonpost.com/politics/certi…
#NC09 GOP candidate @MarkHarrisNC9’s campaign appears to have sent people door to door in rural Robeson & Bladen Counties to steal absentee ballots from elderly black voters and complete them for Harris. There were 1300+ such ballots in those counties in a race Harris won by 905. 
“In Bladen County [North Carolina], 61 percent of the accepted absentee by mail ballots voted for Republican Mark Harris,” even though “just 19 percent of the county’s accepted absentee ballots came from registered Republicans.” #NC09
jamiedupree.blog.ajc.com/2018/11/29/abs…
jamiedupree.blog.ajc.com/2018/11/29/abs…
There are also allegations that large numbers of absentee vote by mail ballots—which traditionally lean Democratic even in Red/Purple states—may have been collected by Republican operatives and simply disposed of. See this from NC political scientist Dr. Michael Bitzer:
The GOP operative at the center of the #NC09 scandal is Leslie McRae Dowless, who has a long history of voting hijinks in the region and led an “80 person team” working for @MarkHarrisNC9, per sworn affidavits, with a promise of $40K bonus if Harris won.
amp.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-…
amp.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-…
Odd how Republican champions of clean elections like @KrisKobach1787 @marcorubio @SpeakerRyan and our obviously not-at-all-elected-in-collusion-with-Russians @POTUS have been totally silent on #NC09’s insane spectacle of electoral corruption
The amazing thing is that this may well lead not just to new elections for Congress but maybe even a new Republican primary, since Dowless also worked on that race, which Harris won over the #NC09 GOP incumbent Robert Pittenger, also due to suspicious absentee ballots.
The bottom line is that “NC” stands for “NOT CERTIFIED,” and if there’s any justice whatsoever the results—which elected Harris, a fundamentalist pastor who directs women to “submit to their husbands” to Congress—should be tossed out and folks should go to jail. #NC09
(And man, if Republicans could get away with this BS in North Carolina #NC09 through grassroots corruption and fraud, imagine what neighboring GA’s newly “elected” governor Brian Kemp could’ve gotten away with while serving as elections supervisor OF HIS OWN ELECTION.)
Must follow: @JoeBrunoWSOC9’s live thread on #nc09 here—local reporter on the ground with ongoing updates!
People are asking if the #NC09 Harris election fraud case will be pursued by feds. Just got a tip that Harris’s SON, John Harris, is Asst US Attorney for the Eastern District of NC—which includes Bladen County. (Errata: originally said USAG, he’s AUSA).
Presumably he’ll recuse.
Presumably he’ll recuse.
The situation in #NC09 is even wilder than it looks: The board reviewing the credible charges of electoral fraud against the @MarkHarrisNC9 campaign will cease to exist on 12/3 (a court has found it to be an unconstitutional stripping of exec power).
slate.com/news-and-polit…
slate.com/news-and-polit…
The amazing thing is the electoral review board only exists in the first place because after Democratic governor Roy Cooper was elected, NC’s GOP legislature moved to methodically slash his powers.
If the board disbands, it will be replaced by a board of 3 appointees from the governor and 2 opposition appointees eg 3 Democrats, 2 Republicans. Which would be more likely to find the election invalid, presumably—but the decision would almost certainly be attacked as political.
The carnival of corruption in #NC09 is what you get when one party abandons all pretense of fair governance to engage in an unmitigated power grab. And the end results, as we’ve seen in every Republican-controlled government institution up through the White House, is chaos.
Annnnnd now the Democratic chair of the NC Board of Elections has resigned, to prevent the investigation from seeming tainted by partisan leanings.
It’s a total clusterfork.
washingtonpost.com/politics/north…
It’s a total clusterfork.
washingtonpost.com/politics/north…
Return rate for absentee ballots is usually 80-90%, per NC voting expert @gercohen. But in Bladen and Robeson counties, over 40% of ballots requested by African Americans & over 60% requested by Native Americans did not get returned—vs 17% for white voters
