Election fraud casts a stench over N.C. Congress race
Many things used to be cherished ideals of the Republican Party — things such as free trade, fiscal responsibility, standing up to the Russians, and presidents of strong moral character.
To this list of former positions lingering like persistent ex-lovers comes another: election fraud.
To be sure, Republicans do still care about election fraud, but only in cases where it doesn’t exist, or exists in trivial quantities. In those cases, it can be deployed as a pretext to purge Democrats from the registration rolls for the crime of being infrequent voters, or turn them away at the ballot box for having the wrong kind of ID.
In the rare cases when credible evidence of election fraud actually shows up — like in this year’s race for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District — Republicans are flummoxed.
North Carolina GOP Chairman Robin Hayes has taken on a role reminiscent of Capt. Renault, the police officer in Casablanca who was “shocked, shocked” about gambling at Rick's Cafe, then collected his winnings. Hayes is “horrified and disgusted” at the games played with absentee ballots by “paid political mercenaries.”
Yet until recently, Hayes was in favor of certifying the election of the very person who paid these political mercenaries, Republican Mark Harris. Hayes’ position has evolved since then. First he said a new election could be held only if it could be shown that there was enough fraud to tip the election. On Tuesday, he said a new allegation, that the early vote had been leaked, could be enough to warrant a new vote.
Harris was proclaimed the winner based by a 905-vote, or 0.6 percent, margin over Democrat Dan McCready, before allegations started to fly and the state board of elections refused to certify the result.
North Carolina’s 9th District starts on its western end in Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) where educated professionals swung Democratic this year, much as they did in similar communities across the nation. It then stretches east through conservative Union County and on to a number of mostly rural counties where voting is largely along racial lines.
The controversy centers on Bladen County at the district’s eastern end, where Harris hired an ex-convict named Leslie McCrae Dowless to maximize results with absentee ballots.
Maximize indeed. Bladen was the only one of eight counties where McCready did not improve on the results of the Democrat who ran in 2016. The absentee ballots were eyebrowraising. The gross number was well above expectations. And they broke heavily in Harris’ favor, while they broke heavily in McCready’s favor elsewhere.
The state has obtained signed affidavits describing various irregularities, including voters being given absentee ballots they did not request or being told to give their ballots to unauthorized persons. Without question, this election needs to be fully investigated and redone.
Along with voter purges, gerrymandering, lame-duck power grabs and Uturns on major policy positions, the GOP’s feeble response to election fraud belies a party with few guiding principles besides a desperate desire to cling to power.