General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThere's been some fuckery in NC's 9th district. Might be another Dem pickup.
For those of you not familiar with the area, Dan McCready is the Dem candidate. Mark Harris , an ex-evangelical pastor and all- around whackjob is the R. The NC Board of Elections is refusing to certify until an investigation has been done. People were knocking on voters doors saying they were there to pick up their absentee ballots and offered to finish and sign them.
*snip*
Allegations of voting irregularities in and around Bladen County swirled on Thursday, with the North Carolina Democratic Party calling for an official hearing and a flurry of affidavits surfacing involving absentee ballots.
(Lawyer for the Democratic Party) Wallace went on to say a review of public records confirms that serious irregularities and improprieties may have occurred. Bladen County had the highest percentage of absentee ballot requests in the state. There, 7.5 percent of registered voters requested absentee ballots. In most counties it was less than 3 percent.
An analysis by Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer suggested more aberrations.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 countys accepted absentee ballots.
Unaffiliated voters accounted for 39 percent. Bitzer said Harris margin could potentially come from all those unaffiliated voters.But to have each and every one of those unaffiliated voters vote Republican, thats pretty astonishing, he added. If thats the case, theres a very concerted effort to use that method to one candidates advantage. . . . But at that level theres something else beyond a concerted effort that could be at work.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article222363510.html
muriel_volestrangler
(101,295 posts)ballots - see https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211488489 .
Harris' win was powered, in part, by a surge of absentee-by-mail ballots from Bladen County, according to data from the N.C. Board of Elections. In the May primary, 22 percent of the votes cast in Bladen County in the Harris-Pittenger race were cast by absentee-by-mail, and Harris was the overwhelming winner of those ballots.
Harris won 96 percent of the 456 absentee-by-mail votes in Bladen, but won only 62 percent of all other votes in the county, according to state Board of Elections records.
Gerry Cohen, an elections law expert who was a state legislative attorney for more than 30 years, said the absentee-by-mail votes from Bladen are "unusual."
http://www.wfae.org/post/harris-pittenger-race-unusual-bladen-county-absentee-mail-votes-poured-harris#stream/0
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)NCDawg
(45 posts)and been 100% accurate. This state has been Gerrymandered to the FUBAR degree. State, local and Fed level all swing heavily toward the Pukes! Heck, we have the same avatar....you've been around a lot longer than me...so I'll gladly change! All hail Bloom County!!
getagrip_already
(14,692 posts)So apparently what happened in this county is people went door to door telling residents they had been taken off the voter roles and they needed to re-register to vote. The canvasser would offer them the official forms to both register to vote and request an absentee ballot. They would then file the paperwork on behalf of the voter.
As long as the absentee blallots were filled out and returned by the voters, this mat amount to fraud and illegal acts on the part of the canxassers, but the voters wouldn't have violated any election law and the votes would be valid.
It's an interesting (but potentially illegal) way to increase turnout among unlikely voters. It would be like us targeting highly progressive residents who haven't recently, and walking them through the process to register and vote absentee. Legal up to a point.
Where it gets into election violations is if the canvassers returned to the voters to inquire if they had returned them yet, and offered to help them vote and then turn in the ballots. If the canvasser either filled in the ballot or threw out ballots they knew to be for their opponent, it's election fraud. If they lied to the voter to get them to sign the forms, it's still fraud, but may not violate election voting ;laws.
Smells to high hell though.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)Link to tweet
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