Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
North Carolina to Rerun Congressional Race
In politics, people tend to do the right thing, but more often than not, they only do so after all other options have failed. So it is in the case of North Carolina's Ninth Congressional District. After a narrow margin of victory gave the seat to Republican candidate Mark Harris and after a significant voter fraud campaign on his behalf came to light, Mr. Harris himself has called for a new election, "It's become clear to me that public confidence in the 9th District has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted." It did take more than three months to get to that.
The November race was a close one, with about 900 votes separating Mr. Harris from his Democratic rival Dan McCready. Part of the margin in favor of Mr. Harris came from a large number of absentee ballots that backed him. His absentee operation was run by Leslie McCrae Dowless, whose operation appears to have violated the state's election laws.
The actions were so egregious that the appropriate Board of Elections refused to certify the result. A new board came into office, and they held three days of hearings this week. Rarely is such a place the scene of high drama, but when Mr. Harris' son and Mr. Dowless' former step-daughter testified against the campaign, it was a scene right out of any airport novel of political dynastic intrigue.
The final scene was yesterday when Mr. Harris, an evangelical minister, admitted under oath in the afternoon that his testimony in the morning was inaccurate. Apparently, he has suffered a sepsis infection that has resulted in two strokes and has adversely affected his memory. That should come in handy if he is tried for election fraud; if he can't participate effectively in his own defense, he can not really be tried. Besides, Mr. Dowless would likely be the real target of any prosecution.
After that, it was up to the board. "It appears to me the irregularities and improprieties occurred to such an extent that they tainted the results of the entire election and cast doubt on its fairness," said the board chairman, Bob Cordle. "I believe the people of North Carolina deserve a fair election and deserve to have their votes counted properly." With that, a unanimous vote threw out the November election and a date for primaries and a new election will be set soon.
Marc Elias, the lawyer from Democratic candidate McCready, stated, "For all of the talk that Republicans have about the integrity of elections and election fraud, when they were confronted with ever more evidence of a massive fraud scheme, the Republican Party doubled down on it." He suggested that the sudden volte face from the Harris team was an attempt to minimize legal exposure.
The idea of voter fraud strikes at the heart of democracy. People elect their leaders through the ritual of voting. The process must be fair, and it must be seen to be fair, or it means nothing. The old Soviet bloc ran elections that meant nothing; voting alone does not make for democratic government. It is the fairness of the election that results in legitimacy for the winner.
Since the death of divine-right monarchy, it has become standard (even in countries that are undemocratic) to state that the people of a nation are sovereign and from them flows political legitimacy. Without a fair, democratic election, the whole process is merely window-dressing for raw power politics. Power coming from the bullet rather than the ballot.
Perhaps, Mr. Dowless is a crook. Perhaps, Mr. Harris was naive rather than a co-conspirator. Perhaps, Mr. McCready lost anyway. None of that is relevant. The process is clearly suspect, and in a democratic system, that cannot stand. While it leaves the people of the Ninth CD without a voice in the House of Representatives for a few more months, holding a new election is the only way to remove the stain and seat a congressperson who truly speaks for the people.
It took while, but North Carolinians will finally get their democratic say.
© Copyright 2019 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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