Trump's US Attorney in Eastern District of NC Implicated

US Attorney Robert Higdon,
enabler?

After the 2016 general elections, the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) forwarded almost 300 pages of evidence of absentee ballot fraud in Bladen County to US Attorney for the Eastern District Robert Higdon. In 2016, two years ago.

Higdon did nothing about that evidence. Instead, he chose to prosecute 19 non-citizens who mistakenly voted because they thought they could. Honest mistakes will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law while elaborate schemes for illegally harvesting absentee ballots that benefit Republican candidates ... well, yawn.

Joe Killian at NC Policy Watch reports that Bob Hall, former executive director of Democracy NC, accuses US Attorney Higdon of following "the Republican Party line on election fraud. That means pursuing cases that advance the GOP narrative of supposedly rampant voter fraud by non-citizens and convicted felons, Hall said, while essentially ignoring much more complicated and statistically prevalent fraud – like absentee ballot tampering.

“If the election rigging operation in Bladen County looked like it involved a group of non-citizens voting, Higdon would have deployed the FBI in a heartbeat,” Hall said. “Imagine what his office would have done if he had reports of white conservative voters being victimized by a multi-year ballot stealing operation led by Black operatives. Instead, the reports his office received from the State Board of Elections pointed to the reverse scenario, which wasn’t Higdon’s priority and why the FBI only recently got involved.”

Earlier this year Higdon’s office issued subpoenas on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the North Carolina elections board and more than 40 county boards in the eastern third of the state. The move led voting rights advocates to ask why federal investigators and prosecutors seemed to be concentrating so heavily on non-citizens when so much evidence of absentee ballot fraud had been served up for years by the state board of elections.

The pending likelihood of a mandated new election in the North Carolina 9th Congressional District has blown Mr. Higdon's cover, and we trust that the January 11th SBOE hearing into ballot fraud will expose everything to the sanitizing light.

The Run-Down on All Four NC Races To Be Settled Following a Public Hearing on January 11

The State Board of Elections has set a Raleigh hearing for 10 a.m. on January 11, 2019, to settle the following election results mainly in Bladen County (one notorious already, the others less so):

The proceedings affect the final certification of results in four contests in the 2018 general election:

(1) U.S. Representative for North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District;
(2) Seat 2 on the District Court in Judicial District 16B;
(3) Bladen County Commissioner District 3; and
(4) Bladen Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor

(1) Involves Rev. Mark Harris v. Dan McCready, featuring the peerless Leslie McCrae Dowless and a cast of panic-stricken extras and hundreds of possibly fraudulent absentee ballots.

(2) Judicial District 16B is in Robeson County. The judgeship there was an open seat. On election night November 6th, Republican Jack Moody Jr. led Democrat Vanessa Burton by 77 votes. Then the provisional ballots were opened, researched, and counted. Burton received 312 votes from those provisional ballots to 149 for Moody. A recount was ordered and conducted. Going into this hearing, Burton leads Moody 15,382 votes to his 15,315.

Burton is an assistant district attorney in Robeson. Moody works as a public defender.

“The [SBOE] did not certify the results of that District Court race, as the apparent margin of victory in that contest represented fewer votes than those under review by this agency as it investigates absentee voting irregularities in the 9th Congressional District,” Patrick Gannon, a state Elections Board spokesman, wrote in an email. “There is not a separate investigation into the District Court contest,” Gannon wrote. “However, the results of the congressional district investigation could have some bearing on that contest.”

(3) The Bladen County Commission District 3 contest was between incumbent Democrat Russell Priest and Republican challenger Wayne Edge. Priest edged Edge 2,401 to 2,167 votes. The SBOE ordered the Bladen BOE not to certify this race, presumably because the winning margin is "within the threshold of the contested ballots" in the Mark Harris-Dan McCready race.

(4) The Bladen Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor race is technically non-partisan (though we suspect that every man's child in Bladen knows the parties of the contestants). Charles Gillespie is leading Tim Gause by 572 votes. The race was not certified for the same reason as (3) above.

NOTE: The peerless Leslie McCrae Dowless is a Bladen Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor already -- serving now as vice chair -- having been elected in the (also tainted) 2016 general election.

Rounding Out the Cast for the Movie "Absence of Ballots; Or, Bladen Runner"

Completely forgot about three other key roles in our movie version of election fraud in the NC 9th Congressional District (see the rest of the cast in the last post down-column):

NC Republican Party Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse needs an especially accomplished thespian to capture the arrogance underlaid by mounting panic. There's only one actor for it (though he's a little old) ... Al Pacino. He can suck all the oxygen out of any room, he can weld iron with his voice, and he can veer from snarling aggression to self-flagellating consternation in the same short scene. (The press conference Woodhouse gave immediately after the scandal broke was an amazing show of grating aggression aimed at both the State Board of Elections and the NC DemsParty, yet two days later he was admitting that he had to throw up he was so upset by what was becoming public about the activities of McCrae Dowless (Steve Buscemi).) Pacino can play a bully, including one who gets tapped in the forehead and falls to vomiting. First draft of the movie features Woodhouse infrequently -- a side character -- but the finished plot may take a third-act twist that will fully engage the talents of Mr. Pacino.

Red Dome Group founder Andy Yates, the man who hired McCrae Dowless and who became hard to get hold of as this scandal unfolded. He appears on his company website as a chuckling hobbit -- here's a photo of the real Mr. Yates. That infectious good humor  may be and probably is a useful mask for a calculating horse-trader. The real Andy Yates has had a paid hand in many campaigns as a Republican consultant/operative, and he appears to be successful. His biggest contract ever was with the Mark Harris (Bruce Greenwood) campaign this year (some $500,00 counting the May primary, which included money to hire the very talented McCrae Dowless (Steve Buscemi). Whattayathink? Kevin James ("Paul Blart, Mall Cop") for this part? He's a professional actor. He might well play both jolly fatboy and sly schemer simultaneously. Should we give him a chance at a serious role with a potentially deep dark side? (The Secretary of State's Office administratively dissolved the Red Dome’s incorporation as of August 2017 for failure to file required annual reports. Yates himself bought $2,000 in "sponsorship advertising" at the Annual Leadership luncheon put on by the nonprofit NC Free Enterprise Foundation (NCFEF). Red Dome Group failed to show up for the luncheon on December 5th, and NCFEF director Jonathan Kappler said he didn't expect he'd ever see the money. Red Dome's world appears to be collapsing. Carolyn Justice, who was listed on the website as Red Dome's "lead consultant," told the Charlotte Observer that she had no idea who McCrae Dowless was "because I did not work on the Harris campaign." Her name and photograph has now disappeared from the Red Dome website. The only thing Yates has said to the press about the whole election fraud scandal: "I had no idea what McCrae Dowless was doing for his money."

NC State Board of Elections Chair Joshua Malcolm. I really can't see anybody in this part but Sir Ben Kingsley. Smart, relentless, calculating in his own right, he's the character that blew up the certification of Mark Harris in the first place and launched the investigation that may yet end with a brand-new election (including primary). He can be tough. He knows the law. He knows the ever-loving history of Bladen County, and he's already acquainted with Mr. Dowless (Steve Buscemi). He's playing chess all the time. He has a low and reassuring voice, but he can cut to the quick like a striking mamba. Beware his formal politeness if you're a character in his cross-hairs. He also likes to deal. This essential character part in our movie will grow, especially in the inevitable climactic hearing by the SBOE either to certify Mark Harris or hold a new election. Think of Sir Ben Kingsley presiding at that hearing.

"Absence of Ballots" Or "Bladen Runner"

Gerry Cohen, Nan Fulcher, and probably others have been pitching movie titles for the inevitable and longed-for filming of the (lightly fictionalized) NC9 absentee ballot scandal. I'm going a step further (because I'm semi-snowed-in and fighting boredom) with some prospective casting.

For the pivotal role of Leslie McCrae Dowless, I can't see anyone else but Steve Buscemi. Buscemi can communicate intimidation and toxic disdain like no other actor, and he rarely gets the lead in any movie he's in. He needs this break. He can play strong and he can play weak, and I believe we'll need that kind of range for the Dowless part.

The key part of Reverend Mark Harris needs an actor with enough corruptible unctuousness to be convincing as pastor to his flock while succumbing to the temptation to cheat. First, I thought (naturally!) of Reverend Lovejoy on The Simpsons, but I'm afraid he wouldn't have the range to do the harder scenes of political trimming. The scene where Harris agrees to the hiring of Steve Buscemi for his dirty work might be too much for a mere cartoon. Who could play both calculating and pious? Maybe Bruce Greenwood, one of the most under-appreciated character actors working in films.

Young reporter Joe Bruno, who is really the lead, the hero, the dust buster. Both callow and relentless, a surprising bulldog for the truth. He's tall and lanky and might seem at first to be tissue-thin, but he's got sinew. I have to go with Zach Woods, best known right now probably for "Silicon Valley." He's been mainly cast in nebbishy comic parts, but I think he needs a chance to strut his stuff. He could play those scenes where he surprises himself at how enterprising he can be at getting the story. He's almost embarrassed by his own success.

Killer angel from the state Board of Elections, Kim Strach. There's no one else for this part but Parker Posey, who can play fashion plate with an iron spine better than anyone. She can smile and push the knife in simultaneously. At the moment this part is mighty thin but will grow in importance and gravitas as the investigation reaches a boil.

The almost forgotten victim of all the corruption, Dan McCready, has been the hardest part to cast. Both boy scout and father of three. Both scrubbed innocence and brave Marine. I briefly considered Michael Cera, who can play innocent, but you'd never buy him as a Marine (plus his career appears to have moved into eclipse). I finally decided on Ansel Elgort, of "Baby Driver" fame, who has the right smile for it and who you could imagine toting a rifle.

The Wild Life in Bladen County -- Soon To Be a Book, Or a Major Motion Picture?

More things that stagger the mind and begger the imagination in Bladen County (thanks to the reporting of Joe Bruno):

Jens Lutz.
WSOC

1. Jens Lutz, the vice chair of the Bladen County Board of Elections, suddenly resigned yesterday, holding a pat of butter in his mouth that refused to melt. He said his resignation had nothing whatsoever to do with the absentee ballot fraud investigation. Then wrote in his resignation letter to Kim Strach at the state Board of Elections (SBOE) that it was the investigation, because his family was taking it hard and Democrats were yelling at him about "compromise." (There's the first narrative hole: What compromise?)

SIDE NOTE: The Bladen Director of Elections, Cynthia Shaw, had already packed up her office and left like smoke a week ago, opting to take extended sick leave until her retirement in January.)

2. In 2014 Jens Lutz formed a political consulting LLC ("Politico Management Services") with chief fraud suspect McCrae Dowless. Both were registered Democrats at the time. (Lutz had served a term as chair of the Bladen Co. Democrats.) He admitted that some of Politico Management Services' clients may be subjects of the on-going investigation, so he wouldn't name them.

3. Lutz told Joe Bruno of WSOC that he began to get suspicious about Dowless: “No one knew how he operated,” Lutz said. “He was a very secretive person. Nobody knew what he did. They knew he was productive .... I do everything by the book. Once I see something is not 100 percent, I would rather not be a part of it. There were several people aware of what I was doing and at the time McCrae was a Democrat, I was a Democrat." ("Aware of what I was doing" ... ? Another noticeable hole in Lutz's story.) But then Lutz told Bruno that everything he learned to make him a member of the local Board of Elections, he learned from Dowless. No kidding.

4. Asked if anyone on or in the Bladen County Board of Elections, especially office staff, had collaborated with Dowless on the absentee ballots, Lutz said he didn't know, but then began to talk about the absence of any security at the elections office (opening more speculation). The elections board shares space with Veterans Services, and that other staff of workers has complete access to the elections space all day and night. There's an interior scanning camera on the elections side that hasn't worked in 9 years, according to Lutz, and there's no alarm system. (Somebody needs to run for County Commission down there and make the Elections Office fiasco a major campaign issue.)

5. "Lutz says he notified the SBOE about suspicious activity after the board of elections received reports from people getting absentee ballots and not requesting them. 'That’s a pretty big red flag,' ” Lutz said. Then he offered a theory of the crime that seems based on insider info: “Let’s just say somebody from previous elections [has] a database that they kept, and they got copies of the absentee requests with vital information from the voter on it. Then this person can use that, if they are skilled enough, to copy people’s signatures."

NOTE: Absentee ballot requests are public. It's the copying of voter signatures that would be illegal.

6. Lutz has knowledge of the process: “If you are savvy at this operation, you would know the time it takes [for the absentee ballot to get] from the post office to their house,” Lutz said. “All of the sudden, you show up at a person’s house and say, ‘Hey, I am here for your absentee ballot.’ No. 1, it stuns them that you know it is there, and they are apt to give it to you. They may think you are an official.” That may be the most believable thing Lutz said in his interview: unsophisticated people who know little to nothing about legal processes for voting are apt to consent when the culture is all about social niceness and accommodation. “A lot of people don’t know the election laws, and they don’t understand the procedures of this,” Lutz said. “If they are presented with someone who knows more than they do, they seem to succumb to that person.”

Details You May Have Missed in the Bladen County Absentee Ballot Scandal

I remember reading that Joshua Malcolm, who is now chair of the NC State Board of Elections, said he had been dissatisfied with foot-dragging by the US Attorney for the Eastern District, Robert Higdon, who has supposedly been looking into absentee ballot harvesting going back to 2016. Just found out that Rev. Mark Harris's 28-year-old son works for Robert Higdon. We would assume that young Mr. Harris is recused from anything to do with this case.

While it's not clear that the ballots in question would change the result of the election, contrary to statements made by Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the NCGOP, it is definitely possible. While the 679 absentee votes Rev. Harris received in Bladen and Robeson counties are not enough on their own, there may have been as many as 3,400 absentee ballots requested but not returned in those counties. There's evidence that some -- many? -- of the people supposedly requesting absentee ballots were African-American and that some -- many? -- of them did not know they had requested an absentee ballot. Some of those folks turned their ballots over to operatives working for McCrae Dowless. The clear implication is that African-American voters were being used as pawns in a fraudulent scheme.

Cynthia Shaw, the director of the Bladen County Board of Elections, packed up her office as this scandal was unfolding last week and left, never to return. She apparently decided to take her accumulated sick leave a month before she was scheduled to retire. Perfectly understandable that she might want to go to the beach as this firestorm consumes her office, but it's also mighty convenient/inconvenient, depending on which side you're seeing this from.

Chief fraud suspect McCrae Dowless has a previous fraud conviction in 1992. He reportedly stumbled across a dead person while out picking posies, took out an insurance policy on him, and then collected $165,000 on his death. Dowless has worked as a get-out-the-vote harvester for at least eight other candidates besides Rev. Mark Harris, or at least he's been paid as a "consultant." He was also convicted of felony perjury in 1990, which you may want to keep in mind as he begins to defend himself and his activities.

What did Rev. Mark Harris know, and when did he know it?

Rev. Mark Harris, swearing on a stack of Bibles?

What Would Molly Ivins Say?

I've been reading some Molly Ivins from yesteryear ("You Got To Dance With Them What Brung You"), and I can't help missing her. What she would have written in this target-rich environment!

We have a criminal enterprise inhabiting the White House. We have a comic first family who know not what they do. We have a supine Congress which doesn't want its own power, its constitutional role in this mess. We have Brett Kavanaugh.

But what if Molly lived in North Carolina and hung out in Raleigh?  Here we have Republicans suing to stop an investigation into illegal voting after just convincing 55.49% of voters to institute a required voter photo ID, supposedly to cure voter fraud (which every rural Republican knows runs rampant, because they know a man who said it did, especially in certain counties). Twitterman fed their fantasy by proposing -- on camera -- that he knew many voters went in and voted and then went to their cars and changed their wigs or their shirts and went in and voted again as somebody else -- over and over. That's the lode of intelligence Molly Ivins would have mined with glee.

Molly would have loved Bladen County and the failure to certify the Reverend Mark Harris's win in the 9th Congressional District because of absentee ballot whiffing. It sure does look like the Reverend hired himself an ex-felon with a fraud conviction to harvest absentee ballot votes. Meanwhile, the Democratic chair of the State Board of Elections is forced to resign for being a fool on Twitter. The State Board of Elections has jurisdiction over ordering another election in the 9th, and by now Republican true believers will have conflated this into "Democratic Chair Resigns After Masterminding Ballot Fraud in Bladen County." Bet on it.

Meanwhile, Harris was elected, if he was elected, out of a mulligan stew of illegally gerrymandered districts designed by the best tech eggheads to keep Republicans in power for eternity. Districts, incidentally, existing now only by court order to get through the fall elections and then to forthwith straighten up and stop trying to deliberately disenfranchise people. Even with gerrymandering working its magic, voters were mad enough this November to flip sufficient districts to give the governor back his power to stop Republican bills with a veto.

The self-dealing of North Carolina Republican top dogs would have kept Molly Ivins chortling. Phil Berger's breathtaking self-interest in maneuvering his son onto the state's Court of Appeals. Tim Moore's scorecard on keeping Tim Moore well oiled. (You think I don't remember Jim Black? Guilty Democrats got that way from too much power held for too long. Same syndrome happening now to the NCGOP.)

It's a funny world. Also exhausting, the constant two-wheels-off-the-cliff. In such times, the authoritarian-minded look for a strong man to run everything. I look for simple humanity, with humanity's time-honored values held tight. Common decency must reassert itself and bring our careening chariot back into the road.

BREAKING: State BOE Moves Toward Evidentiary Hearing on Bladen County

At the State Board of Elections minutes ago, Democratic member Joshua Malcolm moved for an evidentiary hearing on the irregularities involving absentee ballots in the 9th Congressional District before December 21. The vote was 7-2, so at least two Republicans voted for the motion.

In other words, the election of Republican Mark Harris is still uncertified.

FOOTNOTE
Watauga County's own Four Eggers was one of the two Republicans to vote for Malcolm's motion.

ANOTHER FOOTNOTE
In a letter to the NCSBE Chair, NC Democratic Party attorney John Wallace urged the board to delay certification of the Harris election, and he outlined additional reasons for an investigation (via Jim Morrill in the Charlotte Observer):

...Bladen County had the highest percentage of absentee ballot requests in the state. There, 7.5 percent of registered voters requested absentee ballots. In most counties it was less than 3 percent.

An analysis by Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer suggested more aberrations.

In seven of the eight counties in the 9th District, for example, McCready won a lopsided majority of the mailed-in absentee ballots. But not in Bladen County. There, Republican Mark Harris won 61 percent even though registered Republicans accounted for only 19 percent of the county’s accepted absentee ballots.

Unaffiliated voters accounted for 39 percent. Bitzer said Harris’ margin “could potentially come from all those unaffiliated voters.”

“But to have each and every one of those unaffiliated voters vote Republican, that’s pretty astonishing,” he added. “If that’s the case, there’s a very concerted effort to use that method to one candidate’s advantage. . . . But at that level there’s something else beyond a concerted effort that could be at work.”

YET ANOTHER FOOTNOTE

AP NEWS

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina judges have delayed the enforcement of their ruling that struck down the latest iteration of the state elections board. 

The extension from the three-judge panel came late Friday.

The judges ruled in October that the board’s composition doesn’t give Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper the control that’s warranted to him over an executive agency. They had put off the board’s termination until Dec. 3, but now it won’t happen until noon Dec. 12. 

GOP leaders had asked the judges for at least another 30 days so they could pass a new elections board law and let the current board work on resolving the pending 9th Congressional District election. The current nine-member board said Friday it would hold an evidentiary hearing on the 9th District by Dec. 21.

So ... sports fans, the 9-member SBOE will stay empaneled for a little longer to resolve this election. But even that is complicated somewhat by a complaint (justified, in our opinion) filed against the Democratic chair of the SBOE, Andy Penry. Penry, in his capacity as chair of a board assembled to guarantee non-partisan administration of elections, should not have been tweeting such partisan material.

State Board of Elections Refuses To Certify Congressional Race, NC-9

Yesterday the North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBOE) voted unanimously -- all 9 members -- not to certify election results in the 9th Congressional District, which Rev. Mark Harris won by just over 900 votes. Democrat Dan McCready conceded the race weeks ago.

Why did they all, including the scenery chewers on the Republican side, refuse certification? It's kind of a secret, y'all. They met in closed session after Democratic member Joshua Malcolm made this statement:

“I’m very familiar with unfortunate activities that have been happening down in my part of the state. And I am not going to turn a blind eye to what took place to the best of my understanding which has been ongoing for a number of years that has repeatedly been referred to the United States attorney and the district attorneys for them to take action and clean it up. And in my opinion those things have not taken place."

Hmmm. Unfortunate activities. To the best of my understanding.

Okay, so that suggests there's already an investigation underway and not for the first time: "activities ... ongoing for a number of years ... repeatedly referred to the Unites State attorney and the district attorneys...."

So what criminal activity related to elections has been ongoing in the NC-9?

Dallas Woodhouse, the cigar-chewing executive director of the NCGOP, told Jim Morrill of the Charlotte Observer that Malcolm was referring to "the situation" in Bladen County, only half of which is in the 9th Congressional District.

If it's Bladen County, it goes back to what happened there in 2016 and was presumably still happening in 2018.

Back in the 2016 general elections, Leslie McRae Dowless Jr., an incumbent Bladen County Soil and Water Commissioner -- a former Democrat currently registered Unaffiliated -- won reelection on November 8 but filed an election protest on November 15 -- a week later -- alleging voter fraud through “a massive scheme to run an absentee ballot mill involving hundreds of ballots” by the Bladen Improvement Association PAC, "a committee funded by the North Carolina Democratic Party and numerous local and statewide Democrats" (Bladen Journal). The Bladen Improvement Association had endorsed Dowless and helped him in 2012 -- "They had me on their sample ballot," Dowless testified -- but then turned against him. And allegedly ran a fraudulent "absentee ballot mill" to try to defeat him.

Boy howdy! The politics in Bladen County look so ... 19th Century! The background on what went on in the Bladen County Democratic Party would probably make a hair-raising good novel, especially as Dowless may have had a history himself of fraud (looks likely, if he's the same Leslie McRae Dowless Jr. of Bladen County sentenced to two years in jail in 1992). (Lisa Sorg, NC Policy Watch).

At any rate, though the SBOE voted 3-2 in 2016 to reject the Dowless petition, they also voted unanimously to refer the matter to the US Attorney for the Eastern District. So there must have been some evidence of mail-in absentee ballot fraud.

It's Mail-In Absentee Ballots, Stupid, Where the Fraud Occurs

Everybody who knows anything about elections, or anybody who can think logically, long ago concluded that in-person voter impersonation is not the potential arena for election fraud and that a photo ID, which is supposed to "cure" voter fraud, can't touch the potential fraud that mail-in absentee ballots invite. While fraudsters don't vote and go to their car and change their shirt and go back in to vote again as someone else, they obviously can do what the Republicans alleged some Democrats were doing in Bladen County in 2016 -- making absentee ballot requests surreptitiously and voting those ballots without the voters' knowledge or consent. We can assume that something similar was going on this fall.

Joshua Malcolm

And here's the thing: Though the SBOE voted to refer the matter to the US Attorney for the Eastern District, that US Attorney's office has declined to prosecute anyone (have the allegations even been referred for investigation?). The Obama-appointed US Attorney resigned the office in January of 2016, before the events in the scandal above. He was replaced by an Acting US Attorney who served until Trump appointed the current US Attorney, Robert J. Higdon Jr. in August of 2017. Higdon has been very active since his installation at pursuing Twitterman's allegations of massive illegal voting by undocumented immigrants. Looks like he might want to take a crack at absentee voting in Bladen County, especially as it may involve a splinter group of Democrats. What an opportunity to score political points!

SBOE member (and Democrat) Joshua Malcolm seemed to signal that the authors of fraud in Bladen were in fact fellow Democrats: He used the word "unfortunate." He might have used a different word if it were Republicans.

UPDATE
What Joshua Malcolm knows about "unfortunate activities" in Bladen County got more complicated: News came this afternoon that the SBOE has seized absentee ballot envelopes at the Bladen County Board of Elections:

State records indicate 684 ballots were cast absentee by mail in Bladen County in the race, most of them for [Republican Mark] Harris. [SBOE spokesman] Gannon declined to say whether anything else has been seized from any other counties in the district, but Robeson County Board of Elections Chairman Steve Stone said a state investigator reached out Wednesday for logs his county elections office kept of people who turned in large numbers of voter registration forms and absentee ballot requests.

So maybe not Democratic factions at all.

But it's pretty clear that it's the absentee ballots, stupid!

FURTHER UPDATE
Republican Congressional candidate Mark Harris apparently got 96% of the mail-in absentee ballots in Bladen County, a fairly astounding statistic.

Miracle on North Harrington Street

James Baker

Judge James Baker, Republican member of the NC State Board of Elections, voted with the two Democrats yesterday to defeat the forces of Governor Patrick McCrory, 3-2.

It was "the Bladen County case." McCrory's lawyers wanted 400 African-American absentee ballots thrown out over all sorts of suspicions.

It's hard to piece together from available print sources, but here's what I understand about Bladen County (mainly relying on the eye-witness tweeting of InSightUs.Org):

Leslie McRae Dowless Jr., 60, an incumbent Bladen County Soil and Water Commissioner -- one of five District Supervisors -- a former Democrat currently registered Unaffiliated who also just won reelection on November 8 -- filed an election protest on November 15 -- a week later -- alleging voter fraud through “a massive scheme to run an absentee ballot mill involving hundreds of ballots” by the Bladen Improvement Association PAC, "a committee funded by the North Carolina Democratic Party and numerous local and statewide Democrats" (Bladen Journal). Dowless won reelection and wanted revenge on the Bladen Improvement Association, which had endorsed and helped him in 2012 -- "They had me on their sample ballot," Dowless testified -- but then…

“In 2016, were you endorsed by the Bladen County Improvement Association?” Joshua Malcolm asked.

“No sir.”

That may have been the moment when Judge Baker changed his vote.

So there's the motive for the Bladen County protest -- pure political revenge (and thank you, Joshua Malcolm).

Evidence of fraud? … not so much. Oh evidence of aggressive ballot-harvesting, no doubt about it. An organized campaign to solicit and get people to vote absentee with paid campaign workers going door-to-door in some neighborhoods and soliciting people to request absentee ballots and then "assisting" those voters in getting those ballots in on time, including witnessing them. There's always the possibility -- however remote -- that one-on-one "assistance" can cross a line toward coersion or fraud. Possibility … the door the Republicans kicked open like a SWAT team.

NB. It was the Republican General Assembly that made absentee voting easier -- no photo i.d. required -- and the Republicans are past masters at "ballot harvesting." They have regularly beaten the Democrats in the absentee vote. But they obviously don't like it when Democrats, especially African-Americans, also get busy after absentee ballots.

But I haven't even gotten to the best part yet!

The Republican lawyers attempted to keep Dowless from testifying. They in effect hid him. Malcolm was outraged, requested staff to immediately issue a subpoena for Mr. Dowless, at which point, or soon after, McCrory's lawyers presented Mr. Dowless for questioning.

Malcolm asked, “Does Mr. Dowless, the individual who brought all these people here today … does your client intend to answer questions today without being immunized?”

McCrory's attorney Roger Knight: “He is present, and will testify today unless advised otherwise by his counsel. He is not waiving his 5th Amendment right to not incriminate himself.”

Under cross-examination by Joshua Malcolm, Dowless revealed that he had been "informed of irregularities" and induced to file his protest by a lawyer with the North Carolina Republican Party. Dowless also eventually indicated that he himself had been engaging in ballot harvesting, also with paid assistance, but he "took the 5th" when asked by Malcolm who had provided him with the campaign finance report documents appended to his protest filing.

SBOE member Malcolm, boring in: “Do you know Caitlyn Croom?” (one of the get-out-the-vote canvassers charged with wrongdoing in Dowless’s protest).

“Yessir, I know her. She helped me with my campaign.”

“Did you pay her?”

“Yessir, I paid her for bringing in completed absentee ballot forms.”

So Dowless was engaged in the exact same ballot harvesting that he was complaining about and about which he's fearful he might be charged. Hence, the invoking of the 5th Amendment. Mr. Dowless did not even seen clear on the allegations in the protest he had signed, which the Republican lawyer had evidently written for him.

Interesting crux revealed under Josh Malcolm's questioning: Dowless had also been contacted before the election by SBOE "investigators" (because Dowless had reached out to the SBOE to complain?). Did the SBOE investigators tip off the McCrory team that there might be grounds for throwing out black ballots in Bladen and that Dowless could be the vehicle?

The lengths to which the McCrory and Woodhouse regime have been going to keep Pat's ineffectual posterior in the governor's mansion … and the fact that Grant Whitney, the Republican Chair of the SBOE, and The Finder-of-Taint Rhonda Amoroso, the other Republican, were willing with their SBOE votes to wipe out a few hundred ballots based on Mr. Dowless's testimony -- just shows the tawdry depths to which desperation will sink:

"It has to be hard being the first North Carolina Governor to lose a reelection race. He couldn’t do what Jim Hunt, Jim Martin, Jim Hunt again and Mike Easley did. Bev Perdue was a one-termer, but she wasn’t run out."

--Gary Pearce