A GOP-led voter fraud scheme allegedly skewed a House race in North Carolina

Mark Harris.
(Image credit: Facebook.com/PastorMarkHarris)

It's been three weeks since Election Day, but one congressional race is still up in the air.

North Carolina's election officials still haven't certified who won the state's 9th District, and voted Friday to further investigate the race's results. That's because several stories of absentee voting gone wrong have surfaced since Election Day, The Washington Post reports.

The most recent results put Mark Harris (R) over Dan McCready (D) by about 1,800 votes, per The New York Times. But a "flurry of affidavits" have since poured in from voters in rural Bladen County, which "had the highest percentage of absentee ballot requests in the state," The Charlotte Observer writes. Some voters say people came to their house and illegally asked for their absentee ballots, even if they weren't filled out, signed, or sealed, the affidavits detail. Others say they received absentee ballots in the mail without requesting them. McCready easily won over absentee voters in all of the 9th District's counties except for Bladen, suggesting a Harris-paid consultant could be "at the center" of a fraud scheme, the Observer writes.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The state board of elections has since unanimously refused to certify the election's results and passed a motion saying it would assess the "claims of numerous irregularities and concerted fraudulent activities related to absentee mail ballots." The office is likely weeks away from announcing official results and may even hold a new election, per the Post.

The 9th District is one of many North Carolina districts a federal court ruled were gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. Explore a map of these controversial districts at The New York Times.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.