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

[NOVA Green]

Are there enough votes in the precincts where the results look fudged that McCready could have won the election?

Vosem,

That's a very good question, and unfortunately NC is not as transparent in posting precinct level election results at a Statewide level.

So, in States or Counties where it is difficult to obtain public official election results, such as Bladen County NC, it becomes a bit more challenging....

I look the liberty of going to a site that collects precinct level data from official sources, that frequently has to rely on scanned PDFs from local County election offices and runs them through an OCR software program, and then dumps the raw output into a CSV file after some customized scripting programs... (PM me if you want a link to the source).

I basically looked at the following Four precincts in Bladen County for the 2016 NC GOV race for the two Major Party candidates only (Not LBT or Write-Ins).

Precinct 15= 516 Total Votes (DEM + REP)
Precinct 201= 243 Total Votes (DEM + REP)
Precinct 202= 430 Total Votes (DEM + REP)
Precinct 501= 426 Total Votes (DEM + REP)

*** Note with Precinct 501 there appears to be an anomaly which I would most likely chalk up to a scripting error that shows 501 is 268 DEM and 268 REP.

It also appears to duplicate Republican results for all precincts for Bladen County, but the other number for precinct 501 = 158 REP vs 268 REP.

So, let's assume for the sake of argument that the total '16 NC-GOV results for these four precincts (Excluding 3rd Party Candidates and Write-Ins) was 1,615 Total Votes (DEM + REP).

Now it starts to get tricky, since one of the focuses of the investigation was absentee ballot fraud....

Voters might be coded to a hard precinct for In-Person voting, but the County wraps up One-Stop Precincts into several different buckets, as well as Mail-In-Absentee Ballots....

How to divide items such as the early "One Stop Vote Centers" into precincts, and how to assess absentee ballots starts to get a bit thorny, especially since I don't visibility on the EV In-Person Vote Center total numbers or ABS for the portion of the CD within the County....

This is one of the frustrating things about many states (Not just Southern States) that take entire buckets of EVs and ABS-Mail Voters and don't move these numbers back to the precinct in a transparent fashion....

Also, I couldn't even find a means to pull up a precinct map of the County to see if maybe there was some major precinct shifts that might have contributed to this, etc....

Ironically, the official County Election Site has a major warning on their official site posted 7/13/18 notifying residents that they are taking all steps to protect election security after the indictment of Russian Military Intelligence Officials because of election hacking/fraud attempts (Meddling I think it is politely called).

https://bladennc.govoffice3.com/?SEC=1B08DD3E-D802-4B15-9D99-CCCA341FAD38

So take that fwiw, but that's the data I could quickly pull up about these precinct #s in 30-40 Minutes of my time....

[NOVA Green]

If McCready was in the lead, the left would be up in arms by now.

Unlike the Extreme Right, the Extreme Left over the past Four Decades, does not engage in political violence targeting individuals...

The Extreme Right is heavily driven by Neo-Fascist and White Supremacist political formations that have been on our watch list for decades.

The "Lone Wolves" of the Extreme Right have been steered and guided by the same movement leaders that have been around for decades, and most of the political violence and mass murders by extremists have been committed by these same folks....

Meanwhile the "Extreme Left" gave up the Armed Struggle decades ago, and now we see overwhelmingly peaceful protests, with occasional incidents where various political formations occasionally commit minor violence against property and once in awhile in the "Left-Wing" strongholds of the US occasionally a few rocks are thrown against law enforcement officers, that are also from overwhelmingly Democratic communities....

Now, in a text based format it's extremely easy to sound too serious on my point, compared to what you were likely actually attempting to say....

"Up in Arms" is a rhetorical presentation on your part, rather than an actual statement regarding Political Violence in the United States in 2018 (Or even within the past 40 Years).

Does "Up in Arms" mean how Republicans in Miami-Dade County since 2000 to the present day have attempted to intimidate local election officials to get the results they want, using everything from storming County Election Offices in 2000 to blockading County Election offices using a fleet of Rental Trucks after the 2018 election?

Democrats tend to be to easy to lie down, roll over, and take the results where it really hurts, and not challenge results that might be extremely sketchy such as TX-23.

Every vote counts, but the PUBs in certain parts of the Country tend to dominate the Counties where the votes are actually cast, dictate the rules of the game, shift around precincts, voting hours, and intentionally try to maintain power politics, even in places with history of White Supremacist rule, where in theory the VRA was supposed to solve all of those issues.....

Is it any wonder that some backwoods County in NC has been rigging the game for Decades, but maybe they got caught because some PUB CI has been cooperating on these issues, because their relative lost re-election for County Dogcatcher?

So ok--- hyperbole aside, have you had a chance to check out the precinct results yet, and can you contribute the communities impacted, or break down how they assign EV locations and break down ABS numbers by precinct?

Sorry--- Western US doesn't like election cheating, regardless of the most heavily Republican State to the most heavily Democratic State....

Looking forward to actually seeing the final results in a potential recount / rerun once the Bi-Partisan officials of the NC-BoE start shifting through this data in greater detail.

[NOVA Green]

Are there enough votes in the precincts where the results look fudged that McCready could have won the election?

That's a very good question, and unfortunately NC is not as transparent in posting precinct level election results at a Statewide level.

In my opinion (and I know I'm biased), NC has some of the easiest accessed voter information there is. It might be a little slow to certify but it is incredibly easy to access with an interactive map. You are correct in saying that occasionally they do not split the early vote into the precincts, but I have it on very good authority that they will for this election (they did so in the primary as well).

https://er.ncsbe.gov/contest_details.html?election_dt=11/06/2018&county_id=9&contest_id=1183*

*As of right now, the absentee, one stop, and provisional ballots have yet to be broken down by precinct, however, they should be at some point in the future.

Also, it's easy to pull the registered voter list as well as the 2018 general voter file from the state's SOS page. I can't find it off hand, but if that's something y'all would like to look at I can put in some time pulling out information on Bladen County.

Thanks for the update, since honestly I've had extreme difficulty trying to track down a comprehensive NC Statewide Site that allows visibility to precinct level data in all parts of the State....

Gave you credit on the following thread where I've been trying to make precinct level data more accessible to both Atlas members and non-registered visitors to the Site....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=307483.msg6549215#msg6549215

[NOVA Green]

http://www.wfae.org/post/nc-elections-investigator-seized-absentee-ballots-bladen-county#stream/0

They note the 2016 election, but omit some important details.

In 2016, the allegations were that  the Bladen Improvement Political Action Committee, whose leader was Horace Munn had harvested votes, including writing in the name of a write-in candidate for a non-partisan election for a conservation district. The write-in votes appeared to use similar handwriting. Munn said at the time that they had been informed that they should have signed the ballots as giving assistance, even though they didn't (according to Munn) provide assistance in filling out the bubbles.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Horace Munn, is incidentally a Black Democrat, and his organization received funding from the Democratic Party as a GOTV effort.

Munn may be related to county commissioner Ophelia Munn-Goins who is a Black Democrat.

So a volunteer goes to door of some voter who is harassed and intimidated at the polls, in the 75% Democratic-registration county. The volunteer is working for a Democrat-funded group headed by a Black Democrat who may be related to a Black Democratic county commissioner.

"Mrs. Johnson, I'm here to help you with your ballot. I've brought a sample ballot so you know how to vote. Be sure to write in Franklin Graham. You don't know how to write in, or maybe are afraid the Klan will recognize your printing? I suppose I can help you with that. Is your lumbago acting up, and need help with some bubbles. You're right, it was better when we used X's. I don't know why they changed. You say I know how you vote. I guess I do (chuckle). Straight-ticket Democrat. There, I'm finished. I'll seal up the envelope and you can sign the envelope. I'll make sure this gets to the election folks. If I bring enough in, I'll get some scholarship money."

So a dedicated young Democratic runner who is just trying to make some money to pay for college, helps an elderly widow or couple, and goes a little bit extra by filling out the ballot, but never actually telling them how to vote beyond providing a sample ballot for them to copy, may have inadvertently committed an election offense.

Also in 2016, it was reported that Michael Cogdell had taken pictures inside the early voting site, apparently using the motion recording option. Cogdell is a county commissioner, and incidentally a Black Democrat, took his phone outside and showed the pictures to Horace Dunn (see above) and a news reporter.

There was a second election complaint in Bladen County. Kenneth Register (D) lost a district race for commissioner to a Republican. This may be the first election in the 21st, 20th, or late 19th century where a Republican had won a commissioner district in Bladen County.

Three at large seats are elected by limited voting. At the time of the 2016 primary it was noted that the Democrats had chosen their two commissioners. But at the general election Republicans won two seats, because 54% of the votes for a Democrat, were for Cogdell, while the remainder were split between two candidates. The Republicans ran two candidates and they finished 2nd and 3rd.

Register's complaint said that there had been tampering with memory sticks and also irregularities in absentee voting. Register had been nominated in the Democratic primary, defeating an incumbent Democrat by a 19 vote margin, 948:929, which was one vote outside the 1% margin needed for a recount. Register had received 93.1% of the absentee ballots, while receiving 45.3% of the in-person voting. Register was said to be supported by the Bladen Improvement Political Action Committee (see above) and two witnesses on his complaint were Michael Cogdell and Horace Munn (see above and above). Register received 65% of the absentee votes in the general election, vs. 44.3% of the in-person votes.

An affidavit from one woman said that an individual had told her that he could get some money for getting so many absentee ballots. She liked to help young people out, so she requested a ballot for herself, her forty-year-old daughter, and twin 20-year-old sons. Her daughter was not eligible for an absentee ballot because she didn't live in North Carolina, but she received three ballots. Presumably, her daughter also did not live in the same house, and perhaps had not for close to two decades. The young person persisted in coming back to collect the ballots, but she had not have a chance to fill out the ballots (plural, sic). I don't know why it never occurred to her to let her two sons fill out their own ballots.

At the hearing before the Bladen County Board of Elections, the board ruled that there was not probable cause for the alleged tampering with the memory sticks. Register replied that it was not alleged tampering, he had witnessed it himself. The board also said they could not review the allegations about absentee voting because the state board had taken jurisdiction because of the allegations in the other case.

So move forward to 2018, and the state board seizes the applications for absentee ballots the day after the election, probably before it was clear that the congressional race would be close. A Democratic member from the state board from neighboring Robeson County admits "sadly" there is a history of vote harvesting in his part of the state. Rest assured, it wasn't the Republicans who had been doing the harvesting in an extremely Democratic Party of the state. There has always been a Republican presence in the western part of the state since the Civil War, and this gradually spread to the cities (Wake voted for Ford in 1976, and Mecklenburg was only narrowly carried by Carter, but the rural eastern part of the state has been a holdout.

The only Republicans to carry Bladen County were Hoover in 1928 (Smith was Catholic and a wet); Nixon in 1972 (McGovern was a peacenik ultraliberal); Bush in 2004 (by 65 votes); and Trump in 2016. BTW, Wallace had a plurality in 1968.

The bipartisan state board unanimously voted to withhold certification of the congressional race because of

(1) Even the Republicans were embarrassed by the shenanigans in Bladen County. The Democrats gleefully went along.

or

(2) The Republicans wanted to complete the investigation so that they could embarrass Roy Cooper. The Democrats couldn't afford to quash the investigation - so they got a fig leaf of not certifying the results.

404= Fake News

[NOVA Green]

There's obviously some shifty and shady stuff going on here....

Some 30 Years back I read a book from Loompanics (Libertarian-Socialist Publisher outside of Port Townsend Washington).... called "How to Steal an Election" (or something similar).

My recollection is that the tactics used were based upon real-life techniques that the Richard Nixon campaign had used in '68 and perhaps more importantly in '72.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate the title yet, since Loompanics faced a full frontal Federal assault between '81 and '95 designed to destroy this small Independent Libertarian Publishing House...

https://www.governmentattic.org/4docs/FBI-Loompanics_1981-1995.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loompanics

This caused most of their former titles to go out of circulation and left a "rump publishing house" reduced to carrying a small sliver of their former titles, after all of the legal fees involved.

http://www.earthlightbooks.com/ci_2480.html

What is left even on places like Amazon are titles that heavily focus on Guns, and a few other items and very few of their older titles.

3_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=loompanics+unlimited&sprefix=loompanics%2Caps%2C219&crid=3711M6LJM6FCW&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aloompanics+unlimited

The point is that this style of election stealing is so extremely blatant and egregious to the point where the Nixon Administration "Old Skool" tactics appear to be such, where the local 'Pubs got caught "with their hands in the cookie jar"....

Let's wait to see the results of the official inquiries, but looks like something that has been going on for decades, and now the cheaters might have finally gotten caught.

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/MurphinDC/status/1075060521337016327

So tempted to do a Jeff Foxworthy (One of my favorite Comedians from the 2000s) "Redneck Joke", but I will resist the bait....

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Jeff_Foxworthy

[NOVA Green]

MSNBC shows Meck dump Mcready +6%

[NOVA Green]

CNN and MSNBC Mcready + 2k lead

[NOVA Green]

NYT now appears to be slower than CNN....

Also NC SBE you can pull up a map by precinct and see which ones are partially (EV) vs Fully reported....

Would post screen snip, but would take too long.

[NOVA Green]

McCready currently leads in all but (4) precincts of Meck (the four in the NE corner), and so far based upon numbers ED 4.7k D > 3.9k R.

[NOVA Green]

All of Union is in

[NOVA Green]

How do you access the map of Mecklenburg? I can't find it.

https://er.ncsbe.gov/index.html?election_dt=09/10/2019&county_id=60

Click View Contest details....

Click on County... then look at Meck by precinct

[NOVA Green]

More Robeson precincts came in, down to a 4-point lead for McCrory now. Was McCready +15 last November.

Just as I feared. Is this Native turnout down? If not...why?!

Precinct data comes later...

[NOVA Green]

Meck precincts remaining generally overwhelmingly ED McCready--- pct 73,75,91,96,101,131,137,144,216,217,227,232.

Includes some decent sized ones, but Union and swings in the Eastern Counties likely make it not enough even if ED numbers are larger than one might imagine over EV numbers in terms of votes remaining.

[NOVA Green]

Meck precincts remaining generally overwhelmingly ED McCready--- pct 73,75,91,96,101,131,137,144,216,217,227,232.

Includes some decent sized ones, but Union and swings in the Eastern Counties likely make it not enough even if ED numbers are larger than one might imagine over EV numbers in terms of votes remaining.

Could it be so narrow that it flips after absentees?

The largest possible margin absentees/provisionals could flip is maybe 3k votes, probably less.

Thanks RI--- I was going to post something to similar effect, but then again it is NC and Provisionals, so who knows....   

Still, extremely unlikely unless there is something extremely rotten in the State of Denmark....

[NOVA Green]

I should say I haven't looked at the outstanding precincts from Bladen if we are searching for extra votes, but it does look like there are two with large Black populations....

It does also look like maybe they shut down these precincts for the SE and made voters drive longer distances.... idk

[NOVA Green]

I should say I haven't looked at the outstanding precincts from Bladen if we are searching for extra votes, but it does look like there are two with large Black populations....

It does also look like maybe they shut down these precincts for the SE and made voters drive longer distances.... idk

Yeah it’s always racism whenever you lose right?

SingltTxGuy not sure if you are directly calling me out or making a rhetorical point involving DEM or perceived DEM leaning avatars...

No, I do not believe that even in States of the Former Confederacy, where elected public Republican leaders have deliberately and intentionally tried to restrict voter access, especially to voters they might perceive as a higher predisposition to vote DEM (Younger Voters, Ethnic Minorities, etc) that all elections are won and lost based upon "racism".

Personally, I believe in Universal AVR and VBM, like Oregon currently does.

Unless a Postal worker steals your ballot (and some states like Cali you can "track your ballot in the mail") which will expose them to dual Federal Crimes (Stealing Mail, and Election related crimes) you have easy access to vote if you choose to.

My main opposition to how Oregon does it, if you live in remote and rural areas (making it difficult to drop your ballot off in mailbox), or paying the cost of a stamp (where do people even buy these anymore?) it does make it more difficult to vote (despite extremely high voter registration and turnout rates in Oregon).....

It's easy a SASE.   There is no reason why Federal, State, and Local Governments should not have a pre-paid envelope when we cast our ballots.

Anyways, all that aside, I don't believe in political autopsy until we have all of the data....

There are many reasons why:

1.) Turnout in an SE may have been lower in certain areas, especially for a House Election where it means little to the balance of the House where DEMs currently maintain a huge majority.

2.) Lack of Hotly contested local elections in some of the Eastern portions of the district may have decreased turnout.

3.) Also, simply put voters tend to gravitate towards higher profile elections within local media markets. It could be that voter turnout was higher in Meck & Union because of local media coverage.

4.) There are all sorts of reasons, and until we get a chance to look at precinct numbers in greater detail we're kind of shooting darts at the dartboard.

5.) I like to compare not just % swings within precincts and code them based upon a variety of Socio-Demographic characteristics, but also for Special Elections look at dramatic shifts in TO levels within precincts.

6.) Bottom line, we have a few initial data points to look at, and although "racism" in terms of NC 'Pub voter purges, and reductions of access to voting sites in rural Black and Native precincts may or may not have been a factor, it may well have been or it may well not have been.

Get your one sentence statement, but that's not me.... and political autopsy can and will discover extreme discrepancies, just like we saw recently in North Carolina.....