The New Republican Mantra: All Elections Are Frauds

NC House member Keith Kidwell,
getting close to power last year

In January of this year the Trumpiest Trumpsters in the North Carolina House formed their own "Freedom Caucus" to push the wing-nuttiest theories and infect the legislative bloodstream with airborne conspiracy theories. This bunch elected freshman House member Keith Kidwell, representing Beaufort and Craven counties, as its leader, and Kidwell promptly began infecting the place with the most popular of Trumpian viruses, that voting fraud must be happening in North Carolina.

Kidwell wrote the State Board of Elections (SBOE) demanding to open up voting machines to see if he could find any modems that could connect to the internet and thus allow Nancy Pelosi to change votes. Never mind that modems in voting machines are expressly banned by North Carolina law. 

Kidwell, however, said in an interview Wednesday that he is confident there was at least some fraud in the 2020 elections. He just wants to find out how much, he said, and who is behind it.

On Facebook, his group has suggested that it may actually be state or local elections officials who are committing fraud, with posts like this one on July 2: “The House Freedom Caucus is now focused on BOE officials and the specific precincts themselves. We absolutely think tampering happens in North Carolina.” [Will Doran reporting for the News and Observer]

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the SBOE, shut that shit down, accusing Kidwell of spreading misinformation (which he is):

“The State Board has received no credible evidence that the certified results are not accurate, and elected officials from both sides of the aisle have stated that the 2020 general election in North Carolina was conducted fairly,” Brinson Bell wrote to Kidwell last week. “We will not allow misinformation about voting systems or any other aspect of elections to dictate our priorities in administering elections.”

So now Kidwell will claim there's a coverup at the SBOE -- "They're hiding something!" -- and gullible idiots will believe him, and the Republican project of dismantling democracy will continue apace, even in a state that Trump won and where Republicans improved their majorities in the NC House and Senate and reelected Thom Tillis to the US Senate.