Last Call For It's About Suppression, Con't

The GOP jig in Bladen County in the stolen NC-9 election is now so far up that the International Space Station has to dodge it.

Bladen County election workers tallied the results of early voting before Election Day in violation of state rules and are accused of allowing outsiders to view them, a precinct worker wrote in an affidavit released by state Democrats.

The allegations raise new questions about missteps in an election fraud case in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District race that has garnered national attention and held up certification of the U.S. House contest.

The report showing totals from Bladen County’s only early voting location was run on Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018 from 1:44 p.m. to 1:46 p.m., according to a copy released by the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement, which is investigating voting irregularities among mail-in absentee ballots in Bladen and Robeson counties.

Due to the investigation, the board has refused to certify the results of the election between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready. The board plans to hold an evidentiary hearing before Dec. 21, but no date or location has been announced.

Under North Carolina election law, “if one-stop ballots ... are counted electronically, that count shall commence at the time the polls close.” Polls closed in North Carolina on Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. “One-stop voting,” which is what early voting is called in North Carolina, ended on Nov. 3, according to the state board. A 2016 memo from the state board reinforced those policies.

“Recent events have highlighted the need to ensure that the critical responsibilities of canvassing an election are as uniform across the state as our polling place procedures, wrote Kim Strach, the executive director of the state board to county boards of elections in a June 7, 2016 memo.

A section of the nine-page memo is headlined: “Counting of Absentee Ballots on Election Day.”

But the procedures laid out in the memo were not followed in Bladen County in 2018, according to documents released by the state board and an affidavit signed by a precinct worker.

“On Saturday, 11/3/18, the last day of early voting, the ‘tape’ showing election results at the one-stop polling site was run after the polls closed, and was viewed by officials at the one-stop site who were not judges. It is my understanding that this was improper,” precinct worker Agnes Willis wrote in a affidavit dated Nov. 29.

Bottom line: There's now no longer any doubt that the NC-9 election was 100% fraudulent and that Mark Harris's reelection is illegitimate. He cannot be seated in the House come January, and North Carolina must hold a new election.

The NC GOP is now scrambling to try to save what little dignity they have left to save Harris's shredded political career.

North Carolina Republican Party chair Robin Hayes released a statement on Tuesday saying that if these allegations were true, they alone would be cause to hold a new election.

“This action by election officials would be a fundamental violation of the sense of fair play, honesty, and integrity that the Republican Party stands for,” he said in a statement. “We can never tolerate the state putting its thumb on the scale. The people involved in this must be held accountable and should it be true, this fact alone would likely require a new election.”

Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the state Republican party, said it was likely early votes were leaked.

"We're almost sure those early vote totals were leaked out," Woodhouse told POLITICO. "That's where we are. The [state elections] board's got to do whatever it does."

In a press conference later Tuesday afternoon, Woodhouse echoed the call for a new election to be held if the allegations proved true and said that the state board of elections needed to take over any special election. He also defended Harris.

"We have seen nothing that makes us think Mark Harris participated or would condone this behavior," Woodhouse said at the press conference. "We believe it is against his character."

Except of course Harris freely hired a convicted fraudster to run his GOTV operation in Bladen County, and the election officials there leaked vote info directly to the Harris campaign four days before the vote so that they could make a final fudge of the absentee ballot numbers.

Mark Harris stole this election.

He cannot be allowed to get away with it.