Massive amounts of absentee ballots in North Carolina district not returned

[Borealis]

http://amp.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article222436915.html?__twitter_impression=true

North Carolina’s state board of elections again declined to certify Republican Mark Harris’ apparent victory over Democrat Dan McCready in the 9th Congressional District on Friday,
instead calling for a hearing to discuss the matter on or before Dec. 21. Harris won the race by 905 votes, but the validity of mail-in absentee ballots from in and around Bladen County
have been called into question.

In Bladen, Harris won 61 percent of the votes from mail-in ballots even though registered Republicans accounted for only 19 percent of the county’s accepted absentee ballots, an
analysis by Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer showed. It was the only county in the district in which Harris won mail-in ballots.

In Bladen and neighboring Robeson County, a strikingly large share of the mail-in absentee ballots requested by voters were not returned to elections officials, state election data show.
Across the 9th district, which stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville along North Carolina’s southern border, 24 percent of the requested mail-in ballots were unreturned. In Robeson
County, 64 percent of mail-in ballots requested did not make it back to elections officials. In Bladen County, the figure was 40 percent.

The unreturned ballots are disproportionately associated with minority voters. In Bladen County, the breakdown for African Americans and American Indians generally reflected the
district-wide figures. But in Robeson County, 75 percent of the mail-in ballots requested by African Americans and 69 percent of the mail-in ballots requested by American Indians
were listed as unreturned.

It’s still unclear what will happen next month at the elections board. In October, a three-judge panel ruled the board unconstitutional. A stay in the ruling that allowed the board to
operate as-is had been set to expire Monday. But on Friday, a new stay was granted for two weeks, a spokesman for Senate leader Phil Berger said. The legislature and Gov. Roy
Cooper’ office continue to negotiate to find a solution for the elections board composition.

Harris defeated Rep. Robert Pittenger in the Republican primary in May by 828 votes. In that election, Harris won 437 absentee votes in Bladen County, and Pittenger won 17 votes,
according to the state board.

[chipsnapper]

Is this the one where I saw the tweet where someone said a person was going door to door collecting them? Bet they threw them out if they weren't the right kind of vote.

[Borealis]

So a crony of the GOP candidate (who beat the incumbent in the primary by 805 votes) took advantage of old black people taking their absentee ballots and filling them in for Harris or destroying them.

[Archangel125]

Reminder that North Carolina was one of the worst offenders and arguably the reason the courts took the right to decide voting laws away from the South.

[Borealis]

I don't know about that, the VRA only made several North Carolina counties need preclearance, compared to the entire states of Alaska, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and most of
Virginia.

[Archangel125]

This I didn't know. I assumed it was the whole state.

[Sableye]

the VRA needs to be extended to all the states at this point.