Republicans call for additional investigation in 9th District fiasco
https://www.wral.com/republicans-call-for-additional-investigation-in-9th-district-fiasco/18044487/
Republican state senators called Thursday for a new investigation into the 9th Congressional District's results, as well as into election irregularities going back years in Bladen County.
They said there's a partisan taint on the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement's current inquiry.
The senators said Gov. Roy Cooper should appoint a bipartisan task force, and they criticized past iterations of the board – including one appointed by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory – for failing to follow up on allegations that have dogged Bladen elections for years.
"There's reason to doubt the capacity of the State Board of Elections," said state Sen.
Dan Bishop, flanked by the four other GOP senators who represent the 9th District in North Carolina's General Assembly. "Over the course of two or three administrations they haven't gotten the job done."
Bishop said he agreed with the State Board's decision not to certify this election, though. And the board's recent vote to investigate was 7-2, with two of four Republicans voting to proceed.
The board's elections director, Kim Strach, who's leading the staff investigation, was appointed under McCrory. Her husband, Phil Strach, has been the lead attorney for General Assembly Republicans in a number of recent lawsuits defending an array of legislative changes to North Carolina's election laws.
But Bishop said the board's partisan split – four Democrats, four Republicans and an unnafiliated member appointed by Cooper – is "disabling in its nature."
This is essentially the argument legislative Republicans have made as they fought Cooper the last two years over the board's make up. They have repeatedly sought to lessen the governor's appointment power to the board, and to create a new board made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, arguing that the body that oversees state elections should be fully bipartisan.
The courts have thrown out a number of those changes, and the legislative majority and Cooper administration are negotiating now over how the board will be composed in the future.
It's unclear what will happen in the 9th District. Republican Mark Harris appeared to win that race by 905 votes over Democrat Dan McCready, but evidence emerged of an operation to collect absentee ballots from voters in Bladen County, and perhaps in neighboring Robeson County and other parts of the district.
That would be a felony, and there are thousands of ballots that were requested, but never returned to local election boards to be counted. That is not evidence of fraud in itself, but the number of unreturned ballots in Bladen and Robeson counties raised red flags.
The State Board's investigation will wrap up some time between now and Dec. 21. The board voted to hold a public hearing on the matter by then.
There's also a criminal investigation underway by Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman's office. Freeman is a Democrat and was brought in by Bladen's district attorney. Following the 2016 election, the State Board voted to refer Bladen County issues to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District. It's unclear whether an investigation is underway at that level, but U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon is a Republican.
His office recently charged 19 foreign nationals last month with voting in the 2016 elections, and later issued subpoenas for voting records to the 44 counties in the eastern district, including Bladen County.
