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

[jimrtex]

Absentee ballot envelopes in North Carolina fit into "a pattern of fraud"

https://popular.info/p/exclusive-absentee-ballot-envelopes

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Back in 2016, when it was noticed that all the "Graham Franklin" write-ins were the same handwriting, Horace Munn, leader of the Bladen County Improvement PAC, explained that whoever wrotein the names in must not have realized that they had to also sign the ballot as an assistant even though they didn't do the bubbles.

Remember, BCIPAC claimed that they simply provided a sample ballot "suggesting" how the voter should vote. My presumption is that the sample ballot would be provided when the "volunteers" who were only receiving "expense" money to witness the filling in of the ballot.

In theory, a voter should be able to to vote autonomously. If the voter has a vision disability, a person assisting them can read them the ballot. But they can't say "do you want to vote for the witch, the troll, the witch doctor, or the pot head?" or "You want to vote for that nice Miz Clinton, right?" Similarly, if a voter has a motor disability, an assistant may mark the ballot, but only at the direction of the voter. Presumably, inability to write-in a name legibly enough for it to count might be considered a motor disability.

Now think what happens when you vote in person. If a state requires picture ID, the election judges verify the voters identity, otherwise they accept that the voter is who they say they are, and the voter signs the voting roll confirming that they are that person. Pollwatchers could object. Then the voter is given a ballot and they go over to a voting station. It can be observed that they are voting, and that they took the completed ballot and dropped it in the ballot box. If a voter needs assistance, they can choose their assistant, who takes an oath that they will only act as an agent for the voter. While it may difficult to fully comply, it at least reminds the assistant of their duties.

The election judges in effect witness hundreds of voters casting their ballots.

The absentee voting experience is, in theory, equivalent.

A voter makes an application for an absentee ballot. The blank ballot is sent to the address they are registered at. In theory, this is equivalent to handing a voter a ballot at the polling place. They will sign the ballot envelope when they complete voting.

If a runner helps the voter make an application for an absentee ballot, it is not much different from a volunteer driving a voter to the polls. Likely as not, the person is being politically selective in who they assist.

When the absentee ballot is sent out, the runner(s) reappear. They may even be so helpful as pulling the ballot out of the mailbox and walking it to the door. That is only being neighborly.

The runners/witnesses make sure that it is the actual voter voting the ballot. They hand the voter a sample ballot ("only a suggestion, but Mr. Munn thought you might appreciate it"). The witnesses are supposed to make sure that it is the voter who is filling out the ballot, but also to protect the secrecy of the ballot. "I don't know how she voted, she may have glanced over at the sample ballot, and she might have voted for someone else. I was sitting across from the table and so the ballot was upside to me and I couldn't be sure"

After the voter marks the ballot, she puts it in the ballot envelope (equivalent to putting the ballot into the ballot box), fills out an affidavit on the envelope (the equivalent to signing the voting roll), and the witnesses sign it. If anyone provided assistance, such as writing in "Franklin Graham" or filling in the bubbles, they are also supposed to sign as an assistant. According to Horace Munn the witnesses who also assisted by writing in "Franklin Graham" should also have signed as an assistant. If the witnesses who had handed the sample ballot to the voter, had also assisted a voter who had misplaced her eyeglasses, they should have signed as an assistant who was neutral.

Because North Carolina requires two witnesses, the runners work in pairs. The "expert" Gerry Cohen is naive/disingenuous if he thinks that it works where the witnesses are family members, neighbors, are work mates.

If we look at NC-7 in Bladen County we observe:

Election Day: Horton(D) 55%, Rouzer(R) 44%, (L) 1%.
Early Voting: Horton(D) 61%, Rouzer(R) 36%, (L) 1%.
Absentee: Horton(D) 87%, Rouzer(R) 13%, (L) 0%.

Horton did approximately 30% better among absentee voters, vs. in person voters.

And just for fun:

P30: Horton(D) 81%, Rouzer(R) 18%, (L) 1%.

P30 is Carver's Creek township in far southeastern Bladen County. The township is 60% Black, 18% White, and 18% AIAN (Waccamaw Siouan). So the least white township in the county was less strong for the Democratic candidate than the absentee votes.

It appears that news stories have been conflating countywide absentee votes by party, with absentee votes received in NC-9, ignoring those in NC-7.

The NCSBE has ordered Bladen County not to certify the results of the county commission race in District 3, which was apparently won by the Democrat, but had stronger support by absentee ballots.

[jimrtex]

No, agreed about Bladen ballots- they weren’t placed in the trash, they were turned in. The anomaly is that Bladen had a comparatively LOW percentage of Republicans turn in absentee (and, in turn a high percentage of Dem and unaffiliated), yet in absentee votes cast, Harris cleaned up and had an unexpectedly high percentage of non- Republican votes. That definitely implies either many Dems and unaffiliated voted for Harris in much greater numbers OR someone completed or changed the ballots. The affidavits certainly suggest the latter.

In 2016,

Democratic registration was 59.1%, Republican 15.3%, and unaffiliated 25.5%.

Roy Cooper got 46.1% of the vote.

This indicates that 22% of Democrats voted for McCrory, assuming that turnout was the same for all groups, and every Republican and affiliated voter voted for him.

Are you implying 2016 general could have been fraudulent, too, or that anomalies exist all over the place so there’s nothing wrong with the 2018 numbers? A “therefore...” or the like in some of your posts here would help. Unless you’re just throwing data out with no real conclusions relating to 2018.

The 22% Dem vote going to the Repub stands out but not nearly as much as the absentee data from Bladen and Robeson this year.

What I am saying is that in a rural county in The South, with a particularly large black population (38% in this case) you can not assume that persons who are registered as a Democrat will vote for the Democratic candidate, particularly for federal or state office. In the past, there might not be a contested Republican primary for federal or state office, and you could vote in the Democratic primary. At the local level, being a registered Republican, is a lot like being a registered Libertarian. They can vote in the Libertarian primary, where there might be a blank space for a write-in since no one was actually running.

Columbus County to the south just elected its first Republican sheriff ever. It is 54.4% Democrat, 19.5% Republican, and 25.8% unaffiliated. Without carrying all the Republicans and all of the unaffiliated,  and some of the Democrats, this would be impossible.

I assume you know that Bladen County is split between two congressional districts, NC-7 and NC-9. The Bladen County portion of NC-7 is more Democratic than NC-9. The western portion of the county is whiter, the southern portion is blacker, and the eastern part is emptier.

In NC-9, the absentee result was quite similar to the in person result. That is, absentee voters were similar to in-person voters. You could even say that absentee voters were a representative sample of the electorate.

In NC-7, the absentee result was 30% more Democratic than the the in-person electorate. If the absentee voters were polled, you would have selection bias. Your poll would be way off. Alternatively, if you did an exit poll, your results would be off the other way, but not as much because their were fewer absentee voters. This is the anomalous result, not that in NC-9.

BTW, it appears the percentage of Republican absentee voters is countywide, while the percentage of Republican votes is for NC-9 alone.

If we look at Court of Appeals Seat 1, the Republican candidate received 51% of the absentee vote. So he received very little of the Democrat absentee vote (voters will have no idea what a Court of Appeals is, much less who the candidates are. The names don't indicate race, and their first names are Andrew and John (not Andy or Johnny) and both use a middle initial. The only distinction was their party. You could make up an office (for example Interlocutor of Esplanades) and fictional names and get the identical results).

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

How a contested election is handled in the house:

Article 1, Section 5, U.S. Constitution:

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Under the relevant statute, the committee to hear such a challenge is the Committee on House Administration, which is always controlled by the Majority Party by a margin of 6-3.

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https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33780.pdf

[The Mikado]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1069854138727567366

At this point, the only people still saying "just seat Harris" seem to be Harris and Bagel.

EDIT:

https://twitter.com/BowTiePolitics/status/1069731637062184960

Watch this video. Actual person doing this scheme interviewed and saying she just gave all the ballots she gathered to her superiors and has no idea if they were mailed or not.

[wesmoorenerd]

For all of those saying Harris should be certified because he would've won with or without fraud (from the NYT)

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[Brittain33]

Harris supposedly got 96% of the absentee vote by mail in Bladen County. What is the precedent for scoring in the high 90s in absentee vote in a county that is roughly evenly split in a race that is roughly evenly split?

I'll take my answer off the air.

"There are people who are registered Democrats in the South who don't always vote for Democrats" is not a meaningful reply.

The envelopes of the absentee ballots are a rich source of information because they require not only the signature of the voter but the signature of two witnesses. Pending an investigation by the North Carolina State Board of Elections, which voted unanimously against certifying the election, these envelopes have been impounded.

Under normal circumstances, however, these envelopes are available at the local election board for review as public information. Before the Board of Election's action, 162 of the absentee ballot envelopes were photocopied. Popular Information obtained the images of these envelopes through a source.


In all, a group of just eight witnesses appear on over 130 of the 162 absentee ballot envelopes obtained by Popular Information. A summary:

    Woody Hester witnessed 45 absentee ballots

    James Singletary witnessed 43 absentee ballots

    Lisa Britt, who shares an address with Sandra Dowless, witnessed 44 absentee ballots

    Ginger Eason witnessed 31 absentee ballots

    Jessica Dowless witnessed 15 absentee ballots

    Cheryl Kinlaw witnessed 14 absentee ballots

    Deborah Edwards witnessed 11 absentee ballots

    Sandra Dowless witnessed 10 absentee ballots

In many cases, these witnesses were working in concert. James Singletary and Lisa Britt, for example, witnessed almost 30 ballots together.

Back in 2016, when it was noticed that all the "Graham Franklin" write-ins were the same handwriting, Horace Munn, leader of the Bladen County Improvement PAC, explained that whoever wrotein the names in must not have realized that they had to also sign the ballot as an assistant even though they didn't do the bubbles.

Remember, BCIPAC claimed that they simply provided a sample ballot "suggesting" how the voter should vote. My presumption is that the sample ballot would be provided when the "volunteers" who were only receiving "expense" money to witness the filling in of the ballot.

In theory, a voter should be able to to vote autonomously. If the voter has a vision disability, a person assisting them can read them the ballot. But they can't say "do you want to vote for the witch, the troll, the witch doctor, or the pot head?" or "You want to vote for that nice Miz Clinton, right?" Similarly, if a voter has a motor disability, an assistant may mark the ballot, but only at the direction of the voter. Presumably, inability to write-in a name legibly enough for it to count might be considered a motor disability.

Now think what happens when you vote in person. If a state requires picture ID, the election judges verify the voters identity, otherwise they accept that the voter is who they say they are, and the voter signs the voting roll confirming that they are that person. Pollwatchers could object. Then the voter is given a ballot and they go over to a voting station. It can be observed that they are voting, and that they took the completed ballot and dropped it in the ballot box. If a voter needs assistance, they can choose their assistant, who takes an oath that they will only act as an agent for the voter. While it may difficult to fully comply, it at least reminds the assistant of their duties.

The election judges in effect witness hundreds of voters casting their ballots.

The absentee voting experience is, in theory, equivalent.

A voter makes an application for an absentee ballot. The blank ballot is sent to the address they are registered at. In theory, this is equivalent to handing a voter a ballot at the polling place. They will sign the ballot envelope when they complete voting.

If a runner helps the voter make an application for an absentee ballot, it is not much different from a volunteer driving a voter to the polls. Likely as not, the person is being politically selective in who they assist.

When the absentee ballot is sent out, the runner(s) reappear. They may even be so helpful as pulling the ballot out of the mailbox and walking it to the door. That is only being neighborly.

The runners/witnesses make sure that it is the actual voter voting the ballot. They hand the voter a sample ballot ("only a suggestion, but Mr. Munn thought you might appreciate it"). The witnesses are supposed to make sure that it is the voter who is filling out the ballot, but also to protect the secrecy of the ballot. "I don't know how she voted, she may have glanced over at the sample ballot, and she might have voted for someone else. I was sitting across from the table and so the ballot was upside to me and I couldn't be sure"

After the voter marks the ballot, she puts it in the ballot envelope (equivalent to putting the ballot into the ballot box), fills out an affidavit on the envelope (the equivalent to signing the voting roll), and the witnesses sign it. If anyone provided assistance, such as writing in "Franklin Graham" or filling in the bubbles, they are also supposed to sign as an assistant. According to Horace Munn the witnesses who also assisted by writing in "Franklin Graham" should also have signed as an assistant. If the witnesses who had handed the sample ballot to the voter, had also assisted a voter who had misplaced her eyeglasses, they should have signed as an assistant who was neutral.

Because North Carolina requires two witnesses, the runners work in pairs. The "expert" Gerry Cohen is naive/disingenuous if he thinks that it works where the witnesses are family members, neighbors, are work mates.

If we look at NC-7 in Bladen County we observe:

Election Day: Horton(D) 55%, Rouzer(R) 44%, (L) 1%.
Early Voting: Horton(D) 61%, Rouzer(R) 36%, (L) 1%.
Absentee: Horton(D) 87%, Rouzer(R) 13%, (L) 0%.

Horton did approximately 30% better among absentee voters, vs. in person voters.

And just for fun:

P30: Horton(D) 81%, Rouzer(R) 18%, (L) 1%.

P30 is Carver's Creek township in far southeastern Bladen County. The township is 60% Black, 18% White, and 18% AIAN (Waccamaw Siouan). So the least white township in the county was less strong for the Democratic candidate than the absentee votes.

It appears that news stories have been conflating countywide absentee votes by party, with absentee votes received in NC-9, ignoring those in NC-7.

The NCSBE has ordered Bladen County not to certify the results of the county commission race in District 3, which was apparently won by the Democrat, but had stronger support by absentee ballots.

[lfromnj]

For all of those saying Harris should be certified because he would've won with or without fraud (from the NYT)

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Now across the district the average was 23% not returned while 3400 weren't returned in those two counties and I think the number was something like 60% among native americans. The nyt needs to report those percentage difference as not returned ballots are relatively common but that high a percentage is not normal.

[Brittain33]

For all of those saying Harris should be certified because he would've won with or without fraud (from the NYT)

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Now across the district the average was 23% not returned while 3400 weren't returned in those two counties and I think the number was something like 60% among native americans. The nyt needs to report those percentage difference as not returned ballots are relatively common but that high a percentage is not normal.

I think the New York Times reporting serves to counter the notion we have much certainty about how many votes are "in play" one way or another. There were simply too many opportunities to disrupt the chain of voting in ways that leave different impacts on the totals (filling in votes for candidates vs. throwing away ballots) that it's a fool's game to believe you know with any precision what the votes should be. That's why it's best to focus on the actual crimes committed by Harris's campaign and its local stooges.

In theory, someone well-informed could do modeling and statistical analysis about what could have happened but in practice people are responding to individual data points and making badly-informed guesses.

[lfromnj]

For all of those saying Harris should be certified because he would've won with or without fraud (from the NYT)

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Now across the district the average was 23% not returned while 3400 weren't returned in those two counties and I think the number was something like 60% among native americans. The nyt needs to report those percentage difference as not returned ballots are relatively common but that high a percentage is not normal.

I think the New York Times reporting serves to counter the notion we have much certainty about how many votes are "in play" one way or another. There were simply too many opportunities to disrupt the chain of voting in ways that leave different impacts on the totals (filling in votes for candidates vs. throwing away ballots) that it's a fool's game to believe you know with any precision what the votes should be.

Anyway the best article was 538's IMO they summed it up using reporting from other sources and then panned out the stats.

[SteveRogers]

So in theory could democrats just refuse to seat every republican in the house just cuz?

No. While the Constitution says that each house of congress is ultimately “the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members”, The Supreme Court has already said that the House can’t refuse to seat a member just because they don’t like them. There has to be a question about the election returns or their constitutional qualifications to hold the seat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_v._McCormack

[TomC]

So who gets to decide the question about the election returns? Ryan’s house or Pelosi’s? Pelosi needs the new members to elect her and presumably Harris would be sworn in along with those new members. If he’s sworn in, he’d have to be removed, not refused.

[Sol]

Hate to point out the obvious, but Bladen and Robeson SHOULD NOT BE IN THE 9TH!!!!


I hope there is a new election, and I hope the State Supreme Court puts this map through a paper shredder, burns the shreds and then forces Mark Harris to eat the ashes.

It'll be nice when Bladen County ends up in a Likely D Fayetteville-Robeson seat.

It's striking that even in this map, which I suppose is supposed to be a debunking, NC-13 still has a Democratic PVI. Meanwhile, it's possible to draw more compact equivalents which I've illustrated below:





I suppose likely D is maybe an overstatement for any of these districts with the Trump 2016 numbers in the PVI, but all of these districts have Democratic PVIs and would be stronger for a Democrat than those numbers indicate. They all have very low deviations too.

Given that a scenario where NC's maps get struck down is fairly likely, it seems logical that courts would want to go with a district that look like this.

[Young Conservative]

Pat McCrory won Bladen county by 6 points. Roy Cooper won absentees by 23. Looks like there needs to be another investigation....into the governor.

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/mikedebonis/status/1070004688341385216

[Brittain33]

Pat McCrory won Bladen county by 6 points. Roy Cooper won absentees by 23. Looks like there needs to be another investigation....into the governor.

Cool. What was the discrepancy statewide and in neighboring counties? What stands out with Harris’s fraud is how insane the numbers are compared to every other county in the state. He won absentees with 96% of the vote! Was Cooper in the 90s in Bladen?

[Young Conservative]

Pat McCrory won Bladen county by 6 points. Roy Cooper won absentees by 23. Looks like there needs to be another investigation....into the governor.

Cool. What was the discrepancy statewide and in neighboring counties? What stands out with Harris’s fraud is how insane the numbers are compared to every other county in the state. He won absentees with 96% of the vote! Was Cooper in the 90s in Bladen?

I'm not sure where you're getting that information. The website says he won it by a much different amount than you say. Also, yes that absentee result for Cooper is out of line with surrounding areas and the state.

   
Mark Harris   5,413   57.60%   2,519   2,471   420   3
Dan McCready   3,856   41.03%   1,687   1,906   258   5
Jeff Scott   129   1.37%   70   53   6   0

Bolded are the VBM results.  Directly copied and pasted from the NC Elections website, run by Democratic SOS Elaine Marshall.

[The Mikado]

Pat McCrory won Bladen county by 6 points. Roy Cooper won absentees by 23. Looks like there needs to be another investigation....into the governor.

Cool. What was the discrepancy statewide and in neighboring counties? What stands out with Harris’s fraud is how insane the numbers are compared to every other county in the state. He won absentees with 96% of the vote! Was Cooper in the 90s in Bladen?

Harris won 96% in the primary, mind. He "only" won 61% of absentees in the general.

The curious thing about the general is that the makeup of the absentee voter pool was something like 20% GOP, 40% Independent, 40% Democrat, so even factoring in Demosaurs, getting 61% for the R out of that pool is...implausible.

[Nyvin]

Pat McCrory won Bladen county by 6 points. Roy Cooper won absentees by 23. Looks like there needs to be another investigation....into the governor.

That’s not how it works...

[TomC]

"There are people who are registered Democrats in the South who don't always vote for Democrats" is not a meaningful reply.

Especially since the data comparisons are to other Southern counties.

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/JoeBrunoWSOC9/status/1070014297923833857

[Virginiá]

I wonder if it's even possible to not seat Harris if fraud hasn't yet been proven to be responsible for his win:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_v._McCormack
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/138

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This does imply that the House can refuse to seat him if he wasn't "lawfully elected," but I'm unsure at what point speculation, regardless of how much evidence there seems to be, becomes legally relevant. It doesn't seem like the House can refuse to seat him just because some of the votes are fraudulent.

They could expel him with a 2/3 majority though.

[The Mikado]

https://twitter.com/JoeBrunoWSOC9/status/1070014297923833857

Read the thread: way worse than the first tweet implies.

[brucejoel99]

🚨🚨🚨 Hoyer says House should consider refusing to seat Harris amid election-fraud investigation 🚨🚨🚨

[Young Conservative]

Pat McCrory won Bladen county by 6 points. Roy Cooper won absentees by 23. Looks like there needs to be another investigation....into the governor.

Cool. What was the discrepancy statewide and in neighboring counties? What stands out with Harris’s fraud is how insane the numbers are compared to every other county in the state. He won absentees with 96% of the vote! Was Cooper in the 90s in Bladen?

Harris won 96% in the primary, mind. He "only" won 61% of absentees in the general.

The curious thing about the general is that the makeup of the absentee voter pool was something like 20% GOP, 40% Independent, 40% Democrat, so even factoring in Demosaurs, getting 61% for the R out of that pool is...implausible.

The questions of fraud atm are regarding the general, and I don't see why everyone is quick to ignore the similarly odd numbers for Cooper and ignore those for Harris. Its especially odd given Cooper's relative lack of activism on the issue.

[Virginiá]

Pat McCrory won Bladen county by 6 points. Roy Cooper won absentees by 23. Looks like there needs to be another investigation....into the governor.

Cool. What was the discrepancy statewide and in neighboring counties? What stands out with Harris’s fraud is how insane the numbers are compared to every other county in the state. He won absentees with 96% of the vote! Was Cooper in the 90s in Bladen?

Harris won 96% in the primary, mind. He "only" won 61% of absentees in the general.

The curious thing about the general is that the makeup of the absentee voter pool was something like 20% GOP, 40% Independent, 40% Democrat, so even factoring in Demosaurs, getting 61% for the R out of that pool is...implausible.

The questions of fraud atm are regarding the general, and I don't see why everyone is quick to ignore the similarly odd numbers for Cooper and ignore those for Harris. Its especially odd given Cooper's relative lack of activism on the issue.

I mean, if what you're saying about Cooper was all we had to go on for Harris, I'd think nothing of this whole ordeal. The ballot harvesting scheme we are seeing copious amounts of reporting on is really what is concerning for me. Otherwise I don't like to speculate about election results that much without some sort of reason to (unless a candidate is winning North Korea-style numbers in competitive districts/states/etc, of course)