It's exceedingly rare that elections that are decided by vote theft get overturned. But the swingy southern-tier district of North Carolina, stretching from Elizabethtown and Fayetteville in the east, out through Lumberton, Laurinburg, Wadesboro and the southern Charlotte suburbs as far as the Central Piedmont Community College campus in the west, still doesn't have a representative in Congress. The PVI is a daunting R+8, but independents and moderate Republicans in the suburbs abandoned anyone tainted with Trump-- as Harris is-- in droves. (Trump beat Hillary in the 9th by nearly a dozen points-- 54.4% to 42.8%.)Tomorrow-- finally-- the North Carolina Board of Elections will hold its long-awaited public evidentiary hearing in Raleigh into the Mark Harris fraud case. It starts at 10 AM and is expected to last as long as 3 days. The five-member board will consider testimony from its own investigators and experts, plus witnesses representing Mark Harris (R) and Dan McCready (Blue Dog). There are 3 Dems and 2 Republicans on the board. It would take 3 votes to certify Harris-- who leads by 905 votes (including thousands of fraudulent ballots)-- or 4 votes to call a new election. In other words, the Dems would have to get at least one of the Republicans to vote with them for a do-over. Or, the Republicans would need at least one Democrat to agree with them that the election was stolen fair and square. A decision is expected by Wednesday. If the Board of Elections can't reach a decision, either Gov. Roy Cooper (D) or the U.S. House will have to decide and there is little doubt that either would call for a new election.Harris is trying to turn the hearing into a circus in the hopes of discrediting the decision, which no one expects to go his way. His attorney has demanded McCready appear to explain a comment he made last month on TV: "This is for the State Board to decide-- I think there are two options here. Either [Harris] knew what was going on, which I don't know how you wouldn't, and he should be in jail... or he turned a blind eye to fraud. He built a culture of corruption that represents the worst in our politics."Early this month, Charlotte Observer political reporter Jim Morrill explained why McCready would have a commanding head start over Harris. It's mostly money. McCready's got $338,000 in his coffers compared to Harris $19,000.This past Friday Morrill reported that McCready's case is based on the obvious, that Harris' ballot harvesting operation tainted more ballots than the current margin The Election Board can call for a new election if "irregularities or improprieties occurred to such an extent that they taint the results of the entire election and cast doubt on its fairness," which is clearly the case here.
The McCready campaign argues that the number of ballots affected by Leslie McCrae Dowless-- a Bladen County political operative and elected official who was hired at Harris’ direction to conduct get-out-the-vote work-- could be as high as 2,500, citing the 1,364 absentee-by-mail ballots cast in Bladen and Robeson and the 1,169 absentee-by-mail ballots sent to voters that were not returned and who did not vote in another way....Dowless, whose work in the 2016 election led to multiple ongoing investigations, is alleged to have paid workers to collect requests for mail-in absentee ballots, which is legal, and to have paid workers to collect completed or incomplete mail-in absentee ballots, which is illegal.“While only Dowless may ever know the breadth of his scheme, the evidence is conclusive: Dowless’s operation tainted a far greater number of ballots than the apparent margin in the CD-9 race, and he was aided and abetted by elections officials along the way,” the McCready campaign said in its brief.Dowless himself turned in requests for 590 mail-in absentee ballots in Bladen County, according to data released by the state board. McCready’s legal brief says that Dowless and his associates made “well over 700” requests in Bladen County.As for the unreturned ballots, the McCready campaign argues their rate was “exceedingly high” in Bladen and Robeson and claims that Dowless and his associates discarded ballots they had collected. The McCready campaign also said that Bladen County election officials released early vote totals to Dowless, gave him access to unredacted ballot request forms and provided him regular reports with voter information connected to mail-in absentee ballots.McCready’s argument-- that more than 905 ballots were affected-- seems designed to rebut claims by the Harris campaign that the state board should certify his victory because there are not enough ballots to overcome the current deficit.“Irregularity or misconduct alone does not mean a protest moves forward. The State Board must decide whether the irregularity is sufficient to cast doubt on the results of the election,” Harris’ attorneys wrote in their filing to the board. “If irregularity or misconduct-- no matter its nature or egregiousness-- does not cast doubt on the result, the protest should be dismissed.”The Harris campaign has denied knowing about Dowless’ criminal history or about allegations of improper actions in 2016 until news reports after the election.The previous nine-member board was disbanded in late December due to a separate legal challenge, but staff continued its investigation into the election results. The new board, made up of three Democrats and two Republicans, was appointed Jan. 31. Members got their first in-depth look at the evidence gathered by staff last week.
There are several reasons Democrats around the country are rooting for-- and contributing to-- McCready. First, of course, is the tribal mentality which defines this as a team sport and sees McCready in a blue uniform and Harris in a red one. A more valid reason is because Harris is a extremist lunatic who will be a 100% rubber stamp for Trump or even someone pushing Trump further right. But the best reason is because there are already too many crooked politicians in Congress and Harris clearly hired a known election fraud mastermind and paid him to steal the election./ He belongs in prison, not in Congress.That said, I want to warn progressives about McCready. Not only is he a Blue Dog, but on most crucial issues the Republicans will be able to count on him to support their positions. The Democrats don't need another vote to elect a Speaker and organize the House-- the usual lame argument for support crap lesser-of-two-evils candidates like McCready. In fact, McCready will be another voice within the caucus, pushing the caucus to water down progressive proposals. Progressives are actually better off if McCready loses.These are 10 freshman Blue Dogs with their ProgressivePunch ratings so far. Aside from having joined the Blue Dog caucus, you'll notice what they all have in common. McCready is considerably to the right of most of them:
• Anthony Brindisi (NY)- F• Ed Case (HI)- F• Joe Cunningham (SC)- F• Kendra Horn (OK)- F• Ben McAdams (UT)- F• Max Rose (NY)- F• Mikie Sherrill (NJ)- F• Abigail Spanberger (VA)- F• Xopchitl Torres Small (NM)- F• Jeff Van Drew (NJ)- F