Evidence of fraud mounts in uncertified North Carolina race won by Republican
A narrow victory by Republican Mark Harris may be thrown out amid evidence of fraudulent absentee voting
IGOR DERYSH NOVEMBER 30, 2018 9:55PM (UTC)
Investigators have found mounting evidence of fraud in a North Carolina U.S. House race that a Republican won by 905 votes.
Earlier this week, the bipartisan North Carolina board of elections unanimously voted not to certify the results in the state’s 9th congressional district after a Democratic member cited unspecified “unfortunate activities.”
The Washington Post now reports that the board has no plans to certify Republican Mark Harris’ win over Democrat Dan McCready while it investigates whether “hundreds of absentee ballots were illegally cast or destroyed.”
The board is reviewing statements from voters in rural Bladen and Robeson counties. According to the Post, voters said in their sworn statements that people came to their doors and asked them to hand over their absentee ballots. Some said the people even filled out the ballots for them. It is illegal to turn in someone else’s ballot. Other voters said they received absentee ballots even though they had not requested them.
“I filled out two names on the ballot, Hakeem Brown for Sheriff and Vince Rozier for board of education,” Bladen County voter Datesha Montgomery wrote in her statement, according to the Post. “She stated the others were not important. I gave her the ballot and she said she would finish it herself. I signed the ballot and she left. It was not sealed up at any time.”
At least five other people said that visitors came to their doors and offered to fill out their ballots for them.
“She said she was there to get older people to vote,” Emma Shipman, 87, told the Post. “She was kind of pushing me to do it. … I thought about that woman every day. What was she doing?”
https://www.salon.com/2018/11/30/evidence-of-fraud-mounts-in-uncertified-north-carolina-race-won-by-republican/