Congressional Special Election (last call! unstickied after NY-27 final results)

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm not the one to normally defend MUH NORMS but the House refusing to seat a Congressman whose election has been duly certified would be a terrible precedent that Republicans would probably run with, with disastrous consequences.

[Antonio the Sixth]

btw whats everyone opinion on California's ballot harvesting. No I am not using whataboutism as this would be comparing legalized prostitution to illegal prostitution as in California it is legal.

Does anyone else feel like that should be illegal in California?

The campaigns I've worked with collected a few ballots along the way. Nothing wrong with that as long as it's done by people who actually have an interest in making the vote count and not the opposite.

[Antonio the Sixth]

FFS

What's the procedure to replace him?

[Antonio the Sixth]

FFS

What's the procedure to replace him?

Cooper appoints someone.

Oh, OK, good.

[Antonio the Sixth]

FFS, everybody calm down.

There's an investigation going on and we'll find out soon enough what ends up being done about this race. Stop feeding the trolls like Bagel and 2016 and also stop assuming we know everything already.

[Antonio the Sixth]

for f**k's sake

[Antonio the Sixth]

...it's happening.

[Antonio the Sixth]

...it's happening.

what’s happening?

Read the post above. That sounds like a big deal to me.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Might I suggest something totally outlandish as a hot take?

What's going on right now in NC is actually a sign that the system works if you let it work. What Harris' campaign did was against the law and they got caught and Harris' people look likely to face legal sanction while the election seems extremely likely to head to a revote. Perhaps what it shows is that we really need the eagle-eyed nerds of Data Twitter and the hard-working SBOEs like NCs to solve these suspicious discrepancies when they show up.

^^^^

[Antonio the Sixth]

If the GOP is caving you know it's worse than what has been revealed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

A new primary may actually be a good idea, given the anomalies there and the close margin that result is also questionable.

I agree with this.  Since the primary result is also questionable, a new primary would be the fairest thing for the voters of the district.  Yeah, the NCGOP is probably doing it for partisan reasons, but sometimes people end up doing good things even from poor motivations (the flip side is also true, sometimes they do bad things from good motivations). 

There is a rule of law issue about changing the rules while the game is ongoing. I agree that this change is needed but it still shouldn't apply to retroactively to this election.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Harris personally directed Dowless' hiring despite warnings that he may have used fraud in 2016. They interacted regularly during the primary according to a former Dowless associate, and said associate claims Dowless and Harris spoke often about the "program."

...OK, he's in real trouble.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So the official seat count when the new session opens will be 235-199 with 1 vacancy. Neat!

[Antonio the Sixth]

What's taking the BoE so long to call for a new election? The evidence is overwhelming at this point and even the NC GOP(!! seriously, I still have trouble believing it) has conceded that there should be one.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What’s taking them so long to order it ? The large-scale voter fraud is extremely clear at this point.

I'm wondering the same thing. This is a no-brainer at this point.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I still think seating Pittenger would be the proper thing to do here, even if isn't legal.

lol k

[Antonio the Sixth]

NC BoE dissolved by Wake County court: https://www.wcnc.com/mobile/article/news/politics/wake-county-superior-court-rules-that-nc-board-of-elections-to-dissolve-amid-district-9-investigation/275-07a600fc-2ced-404e-8d6e-2c86770a8286

wait WHAT?

I can't access the link from Europe, can someone tell me what's going on?

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK this is beyond ridiculous.

[Antonio the Sixth]

As a Democrat, I neither want Harris (R), nor McCready (D) nor the defeated primary-Republican to be seated. I want NC-09 to remain vacant and a new special primary and general election to be held, which determines a winner.

And I want a tough prison sentence for the Republican guys who collected absentee ballots on their own and destroyed some of them, a hefty financial penalty of several millions to the state GOP, which is paid to the state to reform the state election system and a law that prevents such election fraud in the future.

(normal, sane)

I have no idea what NYE is rambling about.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Good.

Can anyone now order new primaries and a new GE please to get this sh*t over with ?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh, finally, a real BoE, hallelujah

[Antonio the Sixth]

Saw this on Twitter and laughed because who they lined up with Bladen County

Should be Florida.

[Antonio the Sixth]

loljimrtexlol

[Antonio the Sixth]

The story about the "leaked" results was interesting.

At the end of early voting on Saturday at 1 p.m. They let everyone in line finish voting., and then cleared the room except for the actual election workers, who happened to be 6 Democrats and 2 unaffiliated (there were Republicans, but they only worked a second shift, and there was no second shift that day).

The election workers went about their duties, such as counting unvoted ballots. There were ballots in each of six ballot styles which had to be reconciled, etc. One of the things they believed had to be done was run the results tape, which had all the results printed on thermal paper that tended to roll up.

There were three election workers designated as "judges". There was one head and two assistant judges. Among their duties was to sign the result tape, which they did. This is likely a vestige of when there were hand-counted paper ballots, and the election judges signed the precinct tabulation, which would be locked in the ballot box with the ballots before being delivered to the county.

Except after early voting is completed on Saturday this is not done. Apparently none of the judges or election workers realized this, and were not aware until when informed while they were testifying.

According to Agnes Willis, one of three judges, an election worker (incidentally a Democrat) exclaimed, "oh my god!" and commented that he had thought that the black guy had won, pointing to the the sheriff's race. He had the result tape unrolled, and was pointing at the race, as the other workers walked over. Another judge, who had been responsible for running the tape had testified that he must have rolled the tape out to permit signing (he was one of the three signers) and his eye had caught the sheriff's race. He did not seem to have any recollection of the other workers seeing it. The head judge was not aware of any of this, but had signed the tape and had taken the tape locked up in the "treasure box" to the county. She thought that the elections administrator had questioned her about the "leak" then, but on further questioning had admitted it might have been the following Monday when she was picking up election supplies.

Agnes Willis, told her daughter who lived in Raleigh (or perhaps Greensboro or Charlotte) about the incident on the phone that night.

Two days after the NCSBOE had not certified the results in late November, Willis got a phone call from a local lawyer that she did not know. After saying it would take her an hour to get dressed, he instead came over to house, with a notary in tow, and an affidavit that had biographical information about Willis typed out attesting that she was over 18 and of sound mind and body, and was a resident of Bladen County and a registered voter.

She said that she was confused about what the lawyer wanted to know, and that he seemed confused about what information he was trying to get. After he made several phone calls and talked to Willis, he filled in the affidavit (hand printed in a script that would you have guessed Willis had done it) that she observed officials who were not "judges" looking at the results, and that she understood that his was improper.

She clearly understood the distinction of the word "judges", but people casually reading the affidavit would not. The news stories were that outsiders were in the early voting location perusing the results.

She further went on saying that there appeared to be an unusual number of absentee ballots from one precinct, Bethel. This does not actually appear to be true. Bethel, along with the two Elizabethtown precincts and Bladenboro precincts have more voters. Bethel also had the highest election day votes - and she may have perceived some of these as being absentee ballots - which she claimed could be detected by crease marks from being folded.

As has been discussed earlier, there was not an early voting locations in Dublin (in Bethel precinct) and Bladenboro as there had been for the primary and previous elections. Election day voting in Bladenboro and Dublin was up in 2018 over the 2016, presidential voting. But that was because there was not convenient early voting. Moreover, election day voting in Elizabethtown was below 2016 levels, because it was easier to vote over several weeks than on election day.

In addition, Hurricane Florence had knocked out the regular polling place in Dublin (at the Lions Club), so voters might have been uncertain about voting on election day if they had known about the new location.

cool story bro