The Associated Press is retracting its call of a winner for U.S. House in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district. The AP had called the race for Mark Harris (R) on Nov. 9, after Dan McCready (D) conceded the election but the North Carolina board of elections has delayed certifying the results, citing “claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities related to absentee by-mail voting.” FiveThirtyEight: “Where do we go from here? It’s unclear. If the state board of elections finds that fraud did indeed taint the results, it has the authority to call a new election — even if the fraud wasn’t widespread enough to change the winner. And according to the U.S. Constitution, the soon-to-be-Democratic House of Representatives has the final say on the qualifications of its members; it could theoretically refuse to seat Harris until it’s satisfied that he won fairly.”
As I outlined earlier the North Carolina State Board of Elections has a Democratic majority. The chairman of the board is under fire for actively campaigning for Democrats (which is illegal) and the legislature is demanding that he be removed (I posted about this earlier). We we will see how this particular election turns out. The entire Harris /McCready race was already a mess; neither candidate is particularly qualified. Harris in my opinion is an idiot; while McCready is a complete waffler - floating in the wind. I don’t think any recount of the mail-in ballots will change the results of the race. I support disqualifying any improper ballots, but the entire situation must be sorted out before January.
And where in my comments did I mention a school board chairman? The Chairman of the State Board of Elections is one of the most powerful appointed positions in our state.
More information on the Harris mail-in ballot situation in our state... NC board again declines to certify Mark Harris victory as mail-in ballots questioned https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article222436915.html North Carolina’s state board of elections again declined to certify Republican Mark Harris’ apparent victory over Democrat Dan McCready in the 9th Congressional District on Friday, instead calling for a hearing to discuss the matter on or before Dec. 21. Harris won the race by 905 votes, but the validity of mail-in absentee ballots from in and around Bladen County have been called into question. On Friday, the Associated Press retracted its call of a winner in the race. The board’s evidentiary hearing is due “to claims of numerous irregularities and concerted fraudulent activities related to absentee mail ballots” and “to assure that the election is determined without taint of fraud or corruption and without irregularities that may have changed the result of an election,” said Joshua Malcolm, vice chairman of the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement. The vote was 7-2 to hold the hearing. Two of the board’s four Republicans voted yes. This week Democratic Party attorney John Wallace presented the state elections board with notarized affidavits from voters that raised concerns about people improperly collecting mail-in ballots and voters receiving mail-in ballots they did not request, the Charlotte Observer reported. Bladen County had the highest percentage of absentee ballot requests in the state, The Observer reported. In Bladen, Harris won 61 percent of the votes from mail-in ballots even though registered Republicans accounted for only 19 percent of the county’s accepted absentee ballots, an analysis by Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer showed. It was the only county in the district in which Harris won mail-in ballots. Unreturned ballots In Bladen and neighboring Robeson County, a strikingly large share of the mail-in absentee ballots requested by voters were not returned to elections officials, state election data show. A News & Observer analysis of data on mail-in ballots in the district found: ▪ Across the 9th district, which stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville along North Carolina’s southern border, 24 percent of the requested mail-in ballots were unreturned. In Robeson County, 64 percent of mail-in ballots requested did not make it back to elections officials. In Bladen County, the figure was 40 percent. ▪ The unreturned ballots are disproportionately associated with minority voters. More than 40 percent of the ballots requested by African Americans and more than 60 percent of those requested by American Indians did not make it back to elections officials. For white voters, that figure was just 17 percent. ▪ In Bladen County, the breakdown for African Americans and American Indians generally reflected the district-wide figures. But in Robeson County, 75 percent of the mail-in ballots requested by African Americans and 69 percent of the mail-in ballots requested by American Indians were listed as unreturned. ▪ In other counties hard-hit by Hurricane Florence, as Bladen and Robeson were, the share of unreturned mail-in ballots was not as high. In Columbus County, 29 percent of the mail-in ballots requested were unreturned. In Pender County, the figure was 18 percent. The analysis excluded data on voters who requested more than one ballot. Results still not final The nine members of the elections board met for nearly three hours in closed session on Friday. They certified results for several elections across the state, but not in the 9th. “We applaud the board’s bipartisan decision to delay certification and fully investigate the concerning allegations in the Ninth Congressional District. North Carolina voters deserve to know the truth and their voices deserve to be heard,” said Wayne Goodwin, chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, in a statement. On Tuesday, the board refused to certify the results of the Harris-McCready race in a unanimous decision. Malcolm, a Robeson County Democrat, told the board that he was “very familiar with unfortunate activities that have been happening down in my part of the state. And I am not going to turn a blind eye to what took place to the best of my understanding.” North Carolina Republicans have complained about the board’s secrecy on the matter. “I am EXTREMELY concerned about the severe lack of transparency by the Governor’s Board of Elections. The people have been given no information beyond cryptic sentences as to why a congressional race has not be certified. This cannot — and will not — stand,” tweeted Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican. Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, said the board should certify the results with Harris as winner. “The certification of a race and continuing to investigate whether a person or persons did something untoward are not mutually exclusive. We investigate stuff all the time and probably should do more, but you have to have a standard,” Woodhouse told The News & Observer. “At this point, we believe the law requires there be enough evidence that the race could be in doubt. They have shown nothing.” Harris attended the House’s new member orientation in Washington, D.C., last week. Harris was again in Washington on Friday as new members of the House participated in a lottery to determine the order for picking their offices. “Make no mistake, I support any efforts to investigate allegations of irregularities and/or voter fraud, as long as it is fair and focuses on all political parties. But to date, there is absolutely no public evidence that there are enough ballots in question to affect the outcome of this race,” Harris said in a statement released Friday. “Accordingly, the Board should act immediately to certify the race while continuing to conduct their investigation. Anything else is a disservice to the people of the Ninth District.” It’s still unclear what will happen next month at the elections board. In October, a three-judge panel ruled the board unconstitutional. A stay in the ruling that allowed the board to operate as-is had been set to expire Monday. But on Friday, a new stay was granted for two weeks, a spokesman for Senate leader Phil Berger said. The legislature and Gov. Roy Cooper’ office continue to negotiate to find a solution for the elections board composition. Harris called for the board to remain in place until his race is certified. Harris defeated Rep. Robert Pittenger in the Republican primary in May by 828 votes. In that election, Harris won 437 absentee votes in Bladen County, and Pittenger won 17 votes, according to the state board. (More information and charts at above url)
Finally.... State Board of Elections chair resigns https://www.wral.com/state-board-of-elections-chair-resigns/18033698/ State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement Chairman Andy Penry has resigned. Two other board members confirmed the resignation Saturday afternoon after The Washington Post first reported the news. An effort to reach Penry has not yet been successful. Confirmation came from Gov. Roy Cooper's office shortly before 4:30 p.m. "The governor has accepted Mr. Penry's resignation and appreciates his service to our state," spokesman Ford Porter said in an email. Penry, The Post reported, said he wanted the State Board's investigation of election results in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to continue “free of attempts at distraction and obstruction so that the truth can be revealed.” The News & Observer, in an editorial published online Friday, had called on Penry to resign over partisan Tweets. That editorial followed a formal complaint from the head of the Wake County Republican Party, which cited a number of those Tweets and pointed out that State Board members are supposed to refrain from partisan activity.
I see no reason to allow such widespread absentee balloting at all. Perhaps for soldiers stationed away from home and people who can provide doctors' affidavits that they are housebound. Otherwise, no. Any convenience it provides is overridden by the obvious risk of fraud.
The Washington Post described the allegations this way: Among the allegations is that an individual who worked for the Harris campaign coordinated an effort to collect and fill in, or discard, the ballots of Democratic voters who might have otherwise voted for McCready. Several of the affidavits come from elderly African American voters. It is illegal to take someone else’s ballot, whether to turn it in or discard it. The Observer noted how this apparent scheme appeared to affect the unofficial election results: In seven of the eight counties in the 9th District, for example, McCready won a lopsided majority of the mailed-in absentee ballots. But not in Bladen County. There, Republican Mark Harris won 61 percent even though registered Republicans accounted for only 19 percent of the county’s accepted absentee ballots. Unaffiliated voters accounted for 39 percent. According to Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer, this would mean that “each and every one of those unaffiliated voters [in Bladen County]” voted for Harris. Such a result, Bitzer notes, would be “astonishing” but is exceedingly unlikely absent “something else.” State election board member Joshua Malcolm described the apparent anti-democracy efforts as “unfortunate activities.” The nine-member body–comprised of four Republicans, four Democrats and one non-partisan member–previously voted 9-0 against certifying the 9th district’s results. On Friday, the board voted 7-2 in favor of decertifying county-level election results affecting two separate races in the 9th district and determined that a hearing would be held on the matter by Dec. 21. National elections expert Dave Wasserman noted that the “fraudulent pro-GOP absentee ballot mill” in Bladen County wouldn’t likely have provided enough fraud for Harris to steal the election from McCready, but said that evidence of such allegations “looks awfully strong.” Wasserman later amended his analysis to note that if the alleged absentee ballot mill operation also extended to nearby Robeson County, however, then the apparent fraud efforts likely did swing the race for the Republican. https://lawandcrime.com/high-profil...lleged-to-have-committed-massive-voter-fraud/