2018 Midterm Elections Thread.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, Pelosi has won the vote for speaker in the Dem. caucus by 203 to 32. However, she still has to be voted in on the floor, which (assuming no Republican votes for her for speaker), means that she's still short of having enough Dem. votes to take the job.

[Dominus Atheos]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 3c6700e197

N.C. officials investigating irregularities in 9th Congressional District election

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina election officials are investigating possible irregularities with absentee ballots in the state’s 9th Congressional District, refusing to certify the race weeks after Election Day.

Unofficial results show Mark Harris, Republican, defeating Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes out of 282,717 cast. At a Tuesday meeting to certify statewide election results, the state Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement declined to certify that race even as it signed off on the state’s other congressional contests.

The investigation appears to be focused on Bladen County, but an official in Robeson County said that county also has been contacted. State officials have given no other details. They cited a state law allowing them to go into closed session to ensure an election is “without taint of fraud or corruption and without irregularities that may have changed the result of an election.”

Elections officials confirmed Wednesday that an elections investigator seized completed absentee ballot request forms and absentee container envelops Nov. 7, the day after the election.

Patrick Gannon, public information officer for the board, said the investigation is ongoing and considered a “top priority.” Investigators are working quickly to resolve the case given that a new Congress is seated in early January, he said.

The district is currently represented by Robert Pittenger, who was defeated in the Republican primary by Harris, a conservative pastor. McCready, a business executive and veteran, challenged Harris in the district, which stretches from Charlotte nearly to the state’s coastline.

Harris came out 1,557 votes ahead in Bladen County, which cast 9,398 votes in the race, according to state data. In Robeson County, McCready bested Harris by 4,728 votes of almost 31,000 cast.

Gannon said the board, which meets again Friday, won’t certify the race until the investigation is complete.

Under state law, the board can call for a new election if it finds that the race was tainted, a move likely to be challenged in court.

Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the state Republican Party, threatened to take action if Harris isn’t certified quickly.

After the board’s actions Tuesday, Woodhouse launched a series of tweets aimed at the board. “.@NCSBE must certify @MarkHarrisNC9 asap or this will quickly be in court,” he said.

Harris tweeted a copy of a letter his legal team sent to the state board and said he’s preparing to serve in Congress while asking for clarity.

“We were surprised by yesterday’s developments at the State Board of Elections, but our legal team is fully engaged. We trust the process,” he said in the statement.

McCready’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is not the first time absentee ballots from Bladen County have been questioned. In 2016, the state board investigated similar concerns about absentee ballots there and referred the case to the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District. The U.S. attorney’s office would not confirm whether there was an investigation.

Two other House races are uncalled by the Associated Press — the race in New York’s 27th District between Republican incumbent Chris Collins and Democrat Nate McMurray, who has conceded; and the one in California’s 21st District, where Democrat T.J. Cox this week took a lead in the county over incumbent David Valadao (R). If Cox wins and other results hold, Democrats will have gained 40 House seats in the midterm elections.

TLDR: Everybody remember how Trump and the republicans were insisting that democrats were stuffing absentee ballot boxes in florida? Now North Carolina is refusing to certify a House election over the same concerns. So obviously the republicans are mad that their gerrymanders didn't work and are just throwing shit at the wall to try to deny democrats another house seat through lies.

Except... The republican candidate supposedly won this seat and it's his victory that the state election board refusing to certify. And the democrats are the ones leading the charge for more investigations and the republicans are the ones opposing it.

Here is the democratic vice chair of the committee's statement:

“I’m very familiar with unfortunate activities that have been happening down in my part of the state,” vice chair Malcolm, a Robeson County Democrat, told the board. “And I am not going to turn a blind eye to what took place to the best of my understanding which has been ongoing for a number of years that has repeatedly been referred to the United States attorney and the district attorneys for them to take action and clean it up. And in my opinion those things have not taken place.”

TLDR of TLDR: There is a chance that Republicans were stuffing ballots and an investigation might show proof of that.

[aerius]

Come on guys, can't you even live up to Banana Republic standards and cheat properly on your elections?

[Dominus Atheos]

So this story has gotten crazier and crazier. If the democratic party had half a brain, it would be splashed all over the 24 hour news networks, but democrats are idiots. Anyway:

The House race in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, which still hasn’t been certified by the state’s elections board, is looking more suspicious all the time. Republican Mark Harris has a narrow lead over Democrat Dan McCready, but there are big questions about that lead thanks to an absentee ballot-harvesting scheme led by a Republican campaign operative. The numbers are suspicious, the witness signatures on absentee ballot envelopes are suspicious, and people have come forward to say that their ballots were collected, unsealed, by strangers—strangers who we now know were paid by Leslie McCrae Dowless, who was working for the Harris campaign.

Questions have centered around suspicious absentee ballots:

In Bladen County, for example, only 19% of mail-in absentee ballots were requested by Republicans, but Harris won 61% of the mail-in absentee ballot vote. In every other county, including Republican strongholds like Union County, McCready won the mail-in absentee vote.

It’s not just about the absentee votes that were counted, either:

In Bladen, about 40% of the requested absentee ballots, or 495 ballots, were not returned. In Robeson, about 62%, or 1,180 ballots, were not returned. Both percentages are much higher than the district's non-return rate, which was 24%.

When Popular Information’s Judd Legum obtained copies of 162 absentee ballot envelopes from Bladen County, he found that more than 130 of them had been signed by eight witnesses, rather than the usual assortment of family and friends you would expect 162 different absentee voters to have assembled as witnesses. Not only that, but two of them share the last name Dowless and two others were clearly working together, jointly witnessing almost 30 ballots.

Ginger Eason, who witnessed 31 ballots (in that group of 162 that’s public—possibly many more overall), told reporters that “I was helping McCrae pick up ballots,” for which she was paid between $75 and $100. That's illegal: “North Carolina election law states only the voter or a near relative can hand in an absentee ballot.”

Wherever this ends up, it’s a potent reminder of how far Republicans will go to win.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1 ... er-emerges

Next time you hear a Republican ranting baselessly about voter fraud, say these words to him: “Bladen County, North Carolina.” The county where possibly or even probably fraudulent absentee ballots have delayed a U.S. House race from being certified may have had two different absentee ballot fraud operations running, with one of the clumsier would-be election thieves you’re going to find.

A local business owner and town commissioner named Jeff Smith left handwritten notes with explicit details about running an absentee ballot ring behind after an April meeting to discuss the local sheriff’s race:

“Picking up existing ballots unsealed,” the top line of the sheet says, with the word “unsealed” underlined twice.

Below that line are two lines of notes showing payment of $500 for 150 ballots and $1,000 for 250 ballots.

Smith was on the opposite side of the sheriff’s race from Leslie McCrae Dowless, but Dowless ran his absentee ballot operation focused on the race for the 9th Congressional District out of an office provided by Smith.

Shadier and shadier.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/ ... 59875.html

In his letter to the board, Wallace included notarized affidavits from a handful of voters:

▪ Datesha Montgomery said that on Oct. 12, a woman came by her house and told her she was collecting absentee ballots. In the affidavit, Montgomery said she voted for two candidates: one for sheriff, the other for school board. The woman told her “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.”


▪ Emma Shipman said a woman came to her house and told her she was assigned to collect absentee ballots. “I filled out the ballot while she waited outside and gave it to her. . . . She took the ballot and put it in an envelope and never sealed it or asked me to sign it. Then she left. . . . I thought she was legitimate.”

▪ Lucy Young said she received an absentee ballot even though she didn’t request one. She’d already voted early in person.

TL:DR, a bunch of people were signed up for absentee ballots without their knowledge, and then several republican operatives went around to those people's houses and talked them into handing over those ballots signed but not filled out.

[FireNexus]

So this story has gotten crazier and crazier. If the democratic party had half a brain, it would be splashed all over the 24 hour news networks, but democrats are idiots.

I have seen this lazy take on multiple platforms.

It is. I have seen 5-10 minutes an hour devoted to it on msnbc for days. CNN has been talking about it as well, from clips of Harry Enten talking about it. Political news sites like vox, politico, and 538 are talking about it.

Saying “Democrats suck, Hur hur” is not edgy or interesting anymore. Especially because they have spent two straight years doing as much as possible to shape the narrative, relatively successfully, when faced with someone who has managed to fully weaponize the fucking news cycle.

[Dominus Atheos]

So this story has gotten crazier and crazier. If the democratic party had half a brain, it would be splashed all over the 24 hour news networks, but democrats are idiots.

I have seen this lazy take on multiple platforms.

It is. I have seen 5-10 minutes an hour devoted to it on msnbc for days. CNN has been talking about it as well, from clips of Harry Enten talking about it. Political news sites like vox, politico, and 538 are talking about it.

Saying “Democrats suck, Hur hur” is not edgy or interesting anymore. Especially because they have spent two straight years doing as much as possible to shape the narrative, relatively successfully, when faced with someone who has managed to fully weaponize the fucking news cycle.

No kidding, but that's the problem. Republicans are masters of getting any random story into the media cycle no matter how trivial or empty, but democrats can only do it by accident. We've spent months talking about "the caravan", but the news media forgot about a supreme court nominee who probably raped somebody just a few days after he was confirmed.

[Zaune]

No kidding, but that's the problem. Republicans are masters of getting any random story into the media cycle no matter how trivial or empty, but democrats can only do it by accident. We've spent months talking about "the caravan", but the news media forgot about a supreme court nominee who probably raped somebody just a few days after he was confirmed.

In all fairness, that probably says at least as much about the American public as it does about either political party.

[bilateralrope]

So this story has gotten crazier and crazier. If the democratic party had half a brain, it would be splashed all over the 24 hour news networks, but democrats are idiots. Anyway:

With that much fraud going on, I don't see how any result from that election could be considered legitimate.

[The Romulan Republic]

And Republicocks are now using the North Carolina fraud THEIR SIDE committed as proof that the Democrats are wrong/lying and voter fraud is a huge problem (which will then be used as proof of why we need strict voter ID laws to keep minorities from voting, even though this election fraud was perpetrated by a white American Republican).

[Tribble]

And Republicocks are now using the North Carolina fraud THEIR SIDE committed as proof that the Democrats are wrong/lying and voter fraud is a huge problem (which will then be used as proof of why we need strict voter ID laws to keep minorities from voting, even though this election fraud was perpetrated by a white American Republican).

Well ya, you didnt expect them to blame themselves did you?

[Dominus Atheos]

I was wrong, this story is getting the media attention it deserves.

I still don't think democrats work the refs (media) or play dirty enough for my liking, but they're doing good in this instance. I retract my statement.

[The Romulan Republic]

I was wrong, this story is getting the media attention it deserves.

I still don't think democrats work the refs (media) or play dirty enough for my liking, but they're doing good in this instance. I retract my statement.

There's a limit to how dirty they can play before the "Both Sides" bullshit actually becomes valid. But yeah, they should be hitting Republicans over this relentlessly for the next two years going into the 2020 elections.

[Lost Soal]

And Republicocks are now using the North Carolina fraud THEIR SIDE committed as proof that the Democrats are wrong/lying and voter fraud is a huge problem (which will then be used as proof of why we need strict voter ID laws to keep minorities from voting, even though this election fraud was perpetrated by a white American Republican).

Unless I'm mistaken, absentee ballets don't require ID, so ID laws would make no difference unless you ban absentee voting as part of it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, but Republicans have also been trying to get absentee votes thrown out (they pushed this in both Arizona and Georgia this time around IIRC).

[Lost Soal]

The GOP is going to tell the military that they can't vote? That'll go down well.

[Highlord Laan]

The GOP is going to tell the military that they can't vote? That'll go down well.

It'll go down fine. For all the american people like to talk up the military, thy'll keep eating up every plate of shit the republicans put in front of them, because the Democrats in congress are obviously the ones screwing them over, Fox News said so.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Americans only like talking up the military only when they can use them to fight, kill and die in their wars And, only when said wars are one-sided curbstomps for apple pie and Uncle Sam.

Otherwise, "it's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and Tommy, chuck 'im out, the brute .."

[The Romulan Republic]

Oh, half of America will object very stridently to it.

I think part of the end result of Trump, unfortunately, is going to be the Democrats becoming the party of American exceptionalism and "support the troops" fervor, because the Republicans are surrendering that ground. Literally all Republicans have going for them is "White male? Insecure? Threatened by non-white people and women? Vote for us!"

[FaxModem1]

Oh, half of America will object very stridently to it.

I think part of the end result of Trump, unfortunately, is going to be the Democrats becoming the party of American exceptionalism and "support the troops" fervor, because the Republicans are surrendering that ground. Literally all Republicans have going for them is "White male? Insecure? Threatened by non-white people and women? Vote for us!"

Wouldn't be the first time for the Democrats, FDR's GI bill did that last time.