The Republican Party and President Donald Trump have spent a lot of time issuing hysterical, racist, and evidence-free warnings about the prevalence of "voter fraud" in the U.S. as a pretext to roll back voting rights, but the GOP has been conspicuously silent after what has been described as a clear case of election fraud was discovered in North Carolina's 9th congressional district (NC-09), where a Republican candidate edged out his Democratic opponent by just over 900 votes.
"Not enough people are talking about this clear case of election fraud. A new election must be held immediately."
Last week, the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics voted unanimously against certifying Republican Mark Harris' narrow win over Democrat Dan McCready, with one member of the board vaguely citing "unfortunate activities" that may have distorted the final results.
Reporting and witness testimony in the days since the board vote has detailed "a slew of evidence" indicating that GOP operatives carried out a large ballot-harvesting effort, in which thousands of absentee ballots may have been collected and destroyed in an attempt to swing the election in the Republican Party's favor.
As USA Today notes, "A large majority of those unreturned ballots belonged to African-Americans and Native American voters."
"There is now overwhelming evidence that Republicans in NC-09 paid people to collect mail-in ballots which were never sent in," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote on Twitter. "Not enough people are talking about this clear case of election fraud. A new election must be held immediately."
Reportedly led by long-time Republican operative Leslie McCrae Dowless, who worked for Harris' campaign, the alleged election fraud operation involved paying North Carolinians to go door-to-door and collect absentee ballots and hand them over to Dowless.
One woman who says she was paid by Dowless said she wasn't aware the operation was illegal because Dowless "has been doing it for years." The woman said she never saw Dowless mail in the ballots.
Exclusive: A second woman, Cheryl Kinlaw, tells me she was paid $100 by McCrae Dowless to pickup absentee ballots. She said she never thought it was illegal because Dowless "has been doing it for years." She says needed extra money for Christmas presents. #NC09 #ncpol @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/AR4AOyXROa — Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) December 4, 2018 Like the woman I interviewed yesterday, Kinlaw never mailed the ballots. She gave them to McCrae Dowless. She doesn't know what he did with them afterward. She says she has no doubt Dowless wanted Mark Harris and Sheriff Jim McVicker to win. pic.twitter.com/8zQeZvFo4g — Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) December 4, 2018
"The Justice Department must investigate this," declared Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "In a different time, an attorney general would be speaking forcefully against recent voter suppression efforts, vowing to do everything possible to protect fair elections. The silence now is deafening."
"In a different time, an attorney general would be speaking forcefully against recent voter suppression efforts, vowing to do everything possible to protect fair elections. The silence now is deafening."
—Vanita Gupta, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
As state investigators have probed the numerous election fraud accusations in recent days, President Donald Trump—who warned about "voter fraud" repeatedly in the days prior to November's midterms—has not yet said or tweeted a word about the North Carolina accusations.
Democratic congressional leaders, for their part, have vowed not to seat Harris in the new Congress until the fraud accusations are sufficiently investigated. Harris has denied any knowledge of illegal election activity.
In a statement on Wednesday, Rep. Gerry Connelly (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, demanded an emergency hearing on the possibly tainted North Carolina election.
"Real election fraud is playing out right before us," Connelly said. "Votes have been stolen by preying on senior and minority voters, and now a cloud of doubt and suspicion hangs over this election result."
While the Republican majority is once again chasing conspiracies, real election fraud is playing out right before us in North Carolina’s 9th CD. We must have an emergency House Oversight hearing to look into this. My full statementhttps://t.co/XTLzfidB11 pic.twitter.com/3ycwJm5ZTI — Gerry Connolly (@GerryConnolly) December 5, 2018
As The Atlantic's David Graham wrote in a summary of the North Carolina accusations, "After years of insisting there's rampant election fraud in North Carolina and accusing Democrats of indifference or complicity, there's finally a case that looks like real, election-changing election fraud."
"It just so happens that it's alleged to have benefited a Republican," Graham concluded. "Suddenly, the North Carolina GOP is less concerned about the effects of fraud."
monorail_pilot on December 6th, 2018 at 14:51 UTC »
Bladen's absentee ballots are massive statistical outliers. They shifted over 20% right in this election. No day of precinct in the entire district shifted more than 12% right, and that was one small precinct in Cumberland county. Only 16 total precincts moved right by percentage, only 8 also recorded more Republican votes for Congress in 2018 compared to 2016. Of those 8 precincts that became more red and added republican votes, 4 were in Bladen county. All 4 of them are either Bladenboro or immediately adjacent to Bladenboro. 8 people are responsible for being the witness (Each ballot requires 2 witnesses) on over 25% of Bladen absentee ballots. 7 of those 8 live in 2 of the 4 precincts that went doubly red (higher percentage, higher total R votes) in 2018. 3 of those 4 saw significiant turnout increases from 2016 (harder, redder AND more). One of those people is on video stating she was paid to collect absentee ballots and deliver them to a Republican soil and water commissioner. That commissioner (McCrae Dowless) shares the same last name as 2 of those 8 witnesses. One witness a distant relative and the other is his ex-wife. A third witness is the ex-wife's daughter. 3 of the 8 witnesses used a different address when signing as witnesses compared to their voter registration. In fact, it is the same address as 2 of the witnesses, one of whom shares the same last name as the commissioner. That address is a 1 bedroom apartment, making it likely that they were not the intended signatories and someone pre filled the address field on the witness portion of the ballots and then had one of the others sign them for some reason. Absentee ballot requests in Bladen ran significantly higher than expected. Absentee ballot results basically require that of the requested ballots, EVERY republican and 80% of unaffiliated voters would have had to vote for Harris for him to achieve his total. Despite county turnout dropping 12% compared to 2016, absentee turnout increased 10% and day of voting 20%. Both shifting toward the right. Of those day of election turnout changes, the entirety of the increase in turnout is due to 4 precincts, 3 of which are in my "Bladen 4" above. The number of registered voters in these 3 precincts decreased slightly (<2%) from 2016. In the Republican Primary this year, Bladen absentee votes ran 437-17-2 (95.8%) for Harris, in an election that district wide was won by harris by under 1000 votes (48.5% to 46.6%) The third candidate who only received 2 of the 456 absentee votes received 5+% of the vote across the entire district. The primary is similar in the same 4 precincts as well. Harris won over 66% of the vote in those 3 harder, redder, more districts and over 75% in one of those.
So in summation. We know about where they illegally harvested votes. We know it matches election day anomalies. We know at least 1 person was paid to collect ballots and deliver to a Republican official, not to the post office or the elections board. That official had 2 people with the same last name sign a large number of absentee ballots, along with 6 other individuals, using fraudulent addresses for at least 3 of those individuals. We also know that Republican official was paid to support Harris' campaign, though its unclear if it was direct or through a campaign contractor. There are reports that there is sworn testimony stating that there was an offer of a $40,000 bonus to that official. We know that Harris recommended this official for his "results" to other candidates.
It's an awful lot of smoke for there to be no fire.
Sources of data/information
https://er.ncsbe.gov/ - North Carolina Election results
https://bladennc.govoffice3.com/vertical/sites/%7B3428E8B4-BA8D-4BCE-9B92-0A719CB4C4FB%7D/uploads/Bladen_County_Precinct_Codes.pdf - Bladen County Election Precinct Codes
https://popular.info/p/exclusive-absentee-ballot-envelopes - Lists names on the absentee ballots and supports the addressing issues of the witnesses
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/ - NC Voter information records. Contains current registration addresses and historic data regarding precinct registered voter counts
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/north-carolina-election-absentee-ballots-lisa-britt - Reports on relationship of Lisa Britt to Dowless as the daughter of his ex-wife per social media accounts.
https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/channel-9-uncovers-similarities-between-absentee-ballots-in-us-house-district-9-race/882660808 - Ginger Eason states she was paid to collect absentee ballots and deliver them to McCrae Dowless.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article222363510.html - Absentee Ballot return analysis
http://www.wfae.org/post/bladen-robeson-had-3400-absentee-ballots-werent-returned-what-happened-them - Reports on significantly higher absentee ballot requests.
RealityIsMyReligion on December 6th, 2018 at 14:43 UTC »
This is straight from the Goebbels Playbook
Nazis used this tactic repeatedly to discredit accusations against them. Accuse their enemies of doing exactly what they are doing, and then claim that the accusations against them are retaliation, or posit some "they do it too" argument to defuse.
Sound familiar?
Republicans accuse Democrats of being a "violent mob", and portray the fringe-group "Antifa" as if it were a mainstream domestic terrorist group. - The reality is that right-wing terrorism poses a larger threat than Islamist terrorism in America, and that Conservative extremist groups outnumber Liberal extremist groups 20:1.
Trump made sweeping allegations of voter fraud in the 2016 election, promising even to reject any result in which he didn't win. - The reality is that the 2016 election was being manipulated by outside forces in his favor.
Republicans claim that illegal immigrants are illegally voting en-masse, tainting the votes of US citizens. - The reality is that Republicans nationwide are trying to pass laws, spread disinformation, and interfere with voting locations in an attempt to prevent lawful US citizens from exercising their right to vote.
And remember Pizzagate? That might be an attempted coverup of Jeffery Epstein's crimes, and those crimes against children, if fully investigated, could very well implicate Donald Trump.
TheVanillaFog on December 6th, 2018 at 13:53 UTC »
Hey now, they just want to have their ducks in a row on this one. This is it; their big chance to show decisive action in defending the integrity of our elections. Now is the time that they get to show the liberals, once and for all, that they are the party that prizes our democratic process.
.....any minute now.