North Carolina: House Administration Democrats keeping close eye on North Carolina election | Politico

The top Democrat on the House Administration Committee is closely monitoring the ongoing investigation in North Carolina’s contested 9th Congressional District, advising the state elections board to “preserve and protect” all of the evidence it has gathered. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chair of the Administration Committee, raised the possibility that her panel could intervene to determine “the rightful claimant to the seat” in North Carolina. After election night, Republican Mark Harris held a 905-vote lead over Democrat Dan McCready in the vote count — but the election board subsequently refused to certify the results, citing election fraud allegations against a contractor for Harris’ campaign and questions of ballot irregularities. In a letter to the state election board sent Friday evening, Lofgren also pointed out that a “certificate is not ultimately determinative of the House’s course of action.”

North Carolina: 9th District election dispute grinds through courts | CNN

A Superior Court judge in North Carolina has set a hearing in a lawsuit filed by Republican candidate Mark Harris asking the court to force the State Board of Elections to certify the results of the state’s 9th Congressional District election — before the board completes its investigation into potential fraud in the race. The hearing is set for January 22. There is still no clear resolution to the controversy over the results in North Carolina’s 9th District more than two months after Election Day. Harris leads the race by 905 votes over Democrat Dan McCready, but there are serious questions surrounding an absentee ballot operation led by a political consultant he hired.

Congo: Vote data reveals massive election fraud – report | AFP

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s opposition leader Martin Fayulu was a clear winner in the central African nation’s December 19 polls, according to data obtained by the Financial Times. An FT analysis of two separate collections of data shows that Fayulu won the vote by at least 59.4% while president elect Felix Tshisekedi obtained 19% of the votes. The analysis points to huge fraud in the first change of power since outgoing President Joseph Kabila took over from his late father in 2001. According to the report, the election data is likely to embolden Kabila’s critics who have accused him of seeking to cling on to power through a deal with Tshisekedi.

North Carolina: Election board investigated GOP operative at center of fraud probe as far back as 2010: report | The Hill

The man at the center of election fraud allegations in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District was once investigated over allegations that he paid voters to fill out ballots, a former election board investigator says. Marshall Tutor, a former investigator for North Carolina’s Board of Elections, told The Associated Press that the board investigated Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. in 2010. The probe was opened following accusations that Dowless was part of a group paying people to vote in the manner the group directed. Tutor told the AP that the 2010 investigation didn’t result in criminal charges against Dowless because there wasn’t a strong enough case against him. “Dowless was throwing a lot of money around,” Tutor said. “There was no paper trail. Witnesses refused to give sworn statements or testify in court. No one was going to admit they were paid $5 to vote. But where there’s that much smoke, there was fire.”

Congo: Congo braces for election results after commission meets overnight | Reuters

Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral commission met all night and into Wednesday morning ahead of an announcement of results from the presidential election that could come later in the day. Riot police were deployed in front of the commission headquarters in the capital Kinshasa and along the city’s main boulevard, as Congo braced for possible violence amid accusations of vote fraud and suspicions that the government was negotiating a power-sharing deal with one opposition candidate. The Dec. 30 poll was meant to lead to the vast Central African country’s first democratic transfer of power in its 59 years of independence, but a disputed result could trigger the kind of violence that erupted after the 2006 and 2011 elections and destabilize Congo’s volatile eastern borderlands. The electoral commission (CENI) announced on Tuesday evening that it had initiated “a series of evaluation meetings and deliberations, at the end of which it will proceed to the publication of provisional results from the presidential election”.

Bangladesh: The World Should Be Watching Bangladesh’s Election Debacle | Foreign Policy

On Dec. 30, 2018, Bangladesh held its 11th national election since becoming independent in 1971. The questionable results ended in a sweeping victory for the ruling Awami League party of Sheikh Hasina. The party’s coalition secured 288 out of a possible 300 seats in Parliament, ostensibly winning more than 90 percent of the popular vote. The coalition of the principal opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, won a mere seven seats. The results ensured a third term in office for the Awami League. However, almost immediately after the results were announced, a host of foreign and domestic analysts pointed out that the election was far from free or fair. Their misgivings were warranted. At least 17 people were killed in election-related violence, many others were injured, and there were widespread allegations of voter intimidation.

North Carolina: House Democrats prepare to probe disputed North Carolina election | Politico

House Democrats are preparing to launch their own investigations into the disputed congressional election in North Carolina, where Republican Mark Harris’ campaign is facing fraud allegations and the state elections board had refused to certify the results. Harris’ campaign has sued in state court to be seated in Congress, despite an ongoing investigation by the elections board that suffered a setback when the board was dissolved at the end of 2018. Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in the unofficial vote count, but voters and election workers have filed numerous affidavits detailing irregularities during the election, including reports that McCrae Dowless, a subcontractor for Harris’ campaign consultants, ran an operation that collected and marked voters’ absentee ballots. The House Democratic investigations could pave the way for a new election in the district, even if the court orders the board of elections to certify Harris as the winner instead of the board ordering a re-vote itself. The House Administration Committee, now controlled by Democrats, has the authority to call for another election after investigating the 2018 results.

North Carolina: Fight over 9th District election could drag on for months, with no one seated | Charlotte Observer

A new election might not take place in North Carolina’s disputed 9th District for months even if a new State Board of Elections orders a re-run of the contest, leaving local elections officials scrambling and constituents without representation in the U.S. House. “The election might wind up in November,” said Gerry Cohen, former special counsel for the North Carolina General Assembly. “Obviously, people would like to have the vacant seat filled earlier. There’s a lot of moving pieces.” And the timetable for seating a representative in the district that stretches from south Charlotte to Fayetteville got even murkier this week. Gov. Roy Cooper said Wednesday that a planned Jan. 11 hearing by the state elections board won’t happen, after the board was dissolved by a three-judge panel last week following a long-running, partisan battle between Cooper and the state legislature over its makeup.

North Carolina: ‘No reason to doubt the legitimacy of the outcome,’ Harris says as he sues to join Congress | News & Observer

While winners of 2018 House races were being sworn into a new Congress in Washington on Thursday, Republican Mark Harris met with staff from the North Carolina state board of elections in Raleigh. Harris and two attorneys met with state board Executive Director Kim Westbrook Strach and Chief Investigator Joan Fleming for nearly two hours Thursday morning, the board said in a news release. Earlier in the day, Harris filed a motion with the Wake County Superior Court urging the court to compel the board to certify his election. “It’s during this hour,” Harris said, “my 434 colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives will raise their hand and take the oath of office and be seated. I’m the one seat remaining of the 435 to be seated.”

Bangladesh: Opposition boycotts oath, calls for new election | Reuters

Opposition members of Bangladesh’s parliament boycotted a swearing-in ceremony on Thursday, after rejecting results of a general election that they said was rigged to give Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina her third straight term. Hasina’s ruling alliance won more than 90 percent of the seats contested in Sunday’s election, which was marred by accusations of ballot stuffing, voter intimidation and violence that killed at least 17 people. Hasina and her ruling Awami League party have dismissed the accusations. While newly elected members of parliament from the ruling bloc, including Hasina, were sworn in, the seven opposition members stayed away.

Congo: A shambolic, unfair election, two years late – Who will win the count? | The Economist

Standing on a chair in a shabby classroom, a technician peels the plastic off the end of a cable with his teeth and attaches it to some exposed wires that dangle around a light bulb. “Soon the machine will work again,” he says cheerfully to a queue of voters, most of whom have waited for more than five hours. Across Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, hundreds of voting machines did not work on polling day, December 30th. The electronic tablets, nicknamed machines à voler (stealing machines), did little to redeem their dodgy reputation. A lot of voters, unfamiliar with touchscreen technology, struggled to use them. Officials from the electoral commission, widely believed to be in President Joseph Kabila’s pocket, offered unsolicited help. Observers feared they were nudging people to vote for the president’s chosen successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.

Editorials: The Congo’s Crooked Contest | Wall Street Journal

A long history of misrule has made the Democratic Republic of Congo one of the world’s poorest and most dangerous countries. The Congolese people had reason for optimism this summer when President Joseph Kabila agreed to step down. This makes the hijinks surrounding Sunday’s election particularly dispiriting. This was only the fourth multiparty election since independence in 1960, and it is the central African nation’s best chance at a peaceful transfer of power. After delaying elections for years, in August Mr. Kabila agreed to abide by the constitution and forgo another presidential run. That left his chosen successor, Emmanuel Shadary, to face off against some 20 candidates. The opposition largely coalesced around Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi, and Mr. Shadary trailed in polls.

North Carolina: Hearing into North Carolina ballot fraud claims postponed | Associated Press

A planned hearing digging into allegations of possible ballot fraud in the country’s last undecided congressional race was scrapped Wednesday, with North Carolina’s governor blaming Republicans for not backing his plan to temporarily recreate the disbanded state elections board. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said he won’t try to ram ahead with a Democrats-only elections board. State elections staffers then announced the Jan. 11 meeting was postponed due to the lack of a board authorized to subpoena witnesses and hold hearings. Cooper contended he had the authority to reshape a three-Democrat, two-Republican elections board to hold the hearing into an unusually large number of unused absentee ballots and a large advantage in absentees favoring Republican Mark Harris in two of the 9th congressional district’s rural counties.

Bangladesh: Sheikh Hasina denies Bangladesh poll fraud as opposition cries foul | Financial Times

When Selina Akther went to vote in Dhaka in Bangladesh’s general election, she was surprised when the polling agent entered the booth with her. Her surprise turned to outrage, she said, when he then cast her vote. He selected the “spade” button on the screen of one of the electronic voting machines — the symbol of one of the small parties that is part of an alliance with Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League — Ms Akther told the Financial Times. It was not the party she had wanted to support in Sunday’s polls, but despite her protests to the centre’s electoral official, she said, it was too late — her vote was cast.

Indonesia: KPU reports propagators of ‘cast ballots’ rumor to police | The Jakarta Post

The General Elections Commission (KPU) has reported fake news propagators to the police after misinformation about seven containers of cast ballots from China for presidential candidate pair Joko Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin caused uproar over the internet. “It was reported to the Cyber Crime Police and we were about to report it to the National Police,“ KPU commisioner Ilham Saputra said on Thursday as quoted by Antara. He said that on Wednesday evening until early Thursday, the KPU and the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) went to Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta in response to a rumor that the ballot containers were located there. “After checking, we confirmed that the information was incorrect. There were no containers of cast ballots,” he said.

North Carolina: Democrat calls for 48 witnesses at state board hearing into election fraud | McClatchy

The Democrat in North Carolina’s disputed 9th Congressional District election wants to subpoena nearly 50 witnesses for the state board of elections’ hearing scheduled for Jan. 11. But state Republicans vowed to sue Gov. Roy Cooper if he tries to appoint Republican members to the interim board that would be tasked with holding that hearing. Just another day in the wild 9th district. Republican Mark Harris won an apparent victory by 905 votes over Democrat Dan McCready on Nov. 6, but the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement twice declined to certify the election citing voting irregularities among absentee ballots in Bladen and Robeson counties. The nine-member board scheduled a hearing on Jan. 11, but a three-judge panel dissolved the board on Dec. 28, leaving no board in place at the moment for the potential hearing. That didn’t stop a lawyer for McCready’s campaign from submitting a list Sunday of 48 potential witnesses, including a former worker for the National Republican Campaign Committee who Harris hired to be his chief of staff.

North Carolina: GOP wants winner declared in 9th District, fights plan for temporary elections board | WRAL

With the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement disbanded as of noon Friday under a court order, Gov. Roy Cooper said he would appoint an interim board to continue investigating allegations of election fraud in the 9th Congressional District race until a new law kicks in at the end of January. But state Republican leaders are balking at that plan, insisting that Mark Harris be declared the winner of the 9th District race despite the investigation. “The investigation as indicated by this particular board of elections is over,” said Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party. “There might be – and we hope there are – continuing to be criminal investigations for anybody that’s done anything, but this board has failed to act. They have now expired. Mr. Harris should be seated.”

Congo: Electoral fraud fears rise as internet shutdown continues | The Guardian

Fears of electoral fraud are rising in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after officials said a total block on internet connections and SMS services imposed after the chaotic presidential poll on Sunday could last for several days. Both the opposition and ruling coalition have claimed victory in the elections – the third poll since 2002 and the end of a civil war in which millions died. The election, which some observers hope may bring a measure of political stability to the vast central African country, was marred by widespread logistics problems, insecurity and an outbreak of Ebola. Millions were left unable to vote. Barnabé Kikaya Bin Karubi, a senior adviser to the outgoing president, Joseph Kabila, said internet and SMS services were cut on Monday to preserve public order after “fictitious results” began circulating on social media. “That could lead us straight toward chaos,” Kikaya told Reuters, adding that the connections would remain cut until the publication of preliminary results on 6 January.

Madagascar: Both candidates claim victory in presidential election | AFP

Both candidates in Madagascar’s presidential election have claimed victory in the fierce battle for power in the Indian Ocean island. Andry Rajoelina and Marc Ravalomanana — who have each held the top job in the impoverished country before — declared themselves winners in the run-off which analysts warned was likely to draw claims of fraud. “Change is coming tomorrow, and today you can say that ‘Papa’ is elected,” Ravalomanana told supporters on Wednesday night at his headquarters, using his nickname. “Whatever happens, only one thing counts, we will win.” However, his rival Rajoelina said: “I am sure I’m going to win but we’ll wait for the official results.” The contenders, who came a close first and second in November’s first-round election, were both banned from running in the 2013 ballot as part of an agreement to end recurring crises that have rocked Madagascar since independence from France in 1960.

Thailand: Redrawing boundaries, lawsuits cast doubt on credibility of Thai election | Reuters

Thailand will soon hold its first election since the military seized power in a 2014 coup and many hope the vote will return Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy to democracy. The government lifted a ban on political activity when it announced the Feb. 24 election last week, but critics say the junta has taken several steps to remain in power after the vote, casting doubt on how credible the poll will be. “We have seen a systematic manipulation and distortion of the electoral process, of the will of the people, starting from the constitution,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University, referring to the military-drafted constitution that was publicly ratified in 2016, two years after the coup.

Georgia: In a dead heat with Stacey Abrams, Brian Kemp created a diversion from computer security breakdown | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor, had a problem. As did Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state. It was Nov. 3, a Saturday, 72 hours to Election Day. Virtually tied in the polls with Democrat Stacey Abrams, Kemp was in danger of becoming the first Georgia Republican to lose a statewide election since 2006. And, now, a new threat. The secretary of state’s office had left its voter-registration system exposed online, opening Kemp to criticism that he couldn’t secure an election that featured him in the dual roles of candidate and overseer.But by the next day, Kemp and his aides had devised one solution for both problems, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows.They publicly accused the Democratic Party of Georgia of trying to hack into the voter database in a failed attempt to steal the election. The announcement added last-minute drama to an already contentious campaign. More important, it also pre-empted scrutiny of the secretary of state’s own missteps while initiating a highly unusual criminal investigation into his political rivals.But no evidence supported the allegations against the Democrats at the time, and none has emerged in the six weeks since, the Journal-Constitution found. It appears unlikely that any crime occurred. “There was no way a reasonable person would conclude this was an attempted attack,” said Matthew Bernhard, a computer scientist at the University of Michigan who has consulted with plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s use of outdated touch-screen voting machines.

North Carolina: Worries about ballot security overshadow disputed House race | Associated Press

Six months ago, election officials in rural North Carolina’s Bladen County resolved to tighten security at their headquarters and protect the ballots stored there by installing an alarm and video cameras and securing an unlocked door that leads to another government office. The fixes never got done before Election Day. The then-chairman of the county commissioners, who control the purse strings, did not see the need. Now Bladen County is at the center of a disputed congressional election rife with suspicions of fraud, including the possibility that absentee ballots were altered or discarded. While no evidence has surfaced to suggest ballots were stolen or tampered with inside the building, warnings about the potential for political chicanery in Bladen County were raised years before the burgeoning scandal dragged this patch of eastern North Carolina’s pine barrens into the spotlight.

North Carolina: Evidence hearing on 9th Congressional District set for January | News & Observer

A hearing on the North Carolina elections board’s investigation into voting irregularities in the state’s 9th Congressional District has been pushed into 2019. The N.C. State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement announced Friday that it will conduct a public evidentiary hearing at 10 a.m. on Jan. 11. It had planned to hold the hearing by Dec. 21. The new date means Republican Mark Harris is unlikely to be seated with the new Congress when members are sworn in Jan. 3. “The location and details of the proceedings will be released in the coming days. State investigators are awaiting additional documents from parties subpoenaed in this matter and finalizing the investigation prior to the hearing,” board spokesman Pat Gannon said in an email to media outlets.

Russia: Kremlin candidate wins Far East governorship in repeat vote | Associated Press

Russians living in the far eastern region of Primorsky Krai elected a Kremlin-backed candidate for governor Sunday after the results from a previous election were thrown out due to alleged voting fraud. Local election officials said the acting governor of the region, Oleg Kozhemyako, won 61.8 percent of the votes after more than 99 percent of the ballots had been counted in the Russian region on the Sea of Japan. The election commission said Andrei Andreichenko of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party came in second with 25.2 percent of the vote. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called Kozhemyako to congratulate him on the victory. President Vladimir Putin tapped Kozhemyako to stand in as governor of Primorsky Krai and run in the election in place of the former acting governor, Andrei Tarasenko.

North Carolina: As Election Fraud Probe Centers On North Caroilina’s 9th District, A Cynical Cloud Settles In | WGBH

Inside his barber shop in Bladenboro, N.C., Rodney Baxley is giving Bobby Simmons a haircut. The two men are talking about what everyone in this part of the state has been talking about for the better part of the past month: McCrae Dowless, and the operation he was running to get out the vote for Republican Mark Harris in the congressional race in North Carolina’s 9th District. “I don’t think [Dowless] cares about who wins, as long as he gets paid,” Baxley says, as he trims just above Simmons’ right ear. “He’s in it for the cash,” Simmons chimes in. Bladen County, where Baxley’s barber shop is located, is rural, about 150 miles east of Charlotte, and home to the country’s largest pork processing plant, Smithfield Foods. The North Carolina Board of Election’s investigation into possible election fraud has cast a dark, cynical cloud over the community here. “It just shows you how sleazy politics are,” Baxley says.

Editorials: What happened in North Carolina wasn’t voter fraud. Voters were the victims. | Harry Enten/CNN

President Donald Trump and others have long claimed, without evidence, that there is widespread “voter fraud” in America. Some have pointed to the mounting evidence of fraud in North Carolina as proof that voter fraud is a real problem. Yet, I would argue that the situation in North Carolina proves nothing of the sort. There, a political operative who was working for a consulting firm hired by the Republican candidate is accused of directing an illegal scheme involving absentee ballots. What occurred in the Tarheel State wasn’t voter fraud. It was election fraud. And unlike allegations made by the President about voter fraud, there’s actual evidence that election fraud may have occurred in North Carolina.

North Carolina: Why fraud allegations throw the results in North Carolina’s 9th District into doubt | The Washington Post

Mark Harris, the Republican who is the presumptive winner of last month’s race in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, released a statement last week agreeing that a new election should be held in the district — if allegations of election fraud were shown to have possibly affected the contest’s outcome. That echoed a similar comment first made by the executive director state Republican Party shortly after the fraud allegations emerged. “There has to be enough votes in question to possibly change the outcome,” Dallas Woodhouse told the Charlotte Observer on Dec. 3. That’s not true. State law allows the board of elections to call a new election under four conditions, one of which is if “irregularities or improprieties occurred to such an extent that they taint the results of the entire election and cast doubt on its fairness.” That’s a lower bar than the one Harris and Woodhouse are trying to establish. Harris and Woodhouse, of course, have an incentive to set that higher bar: Without a new election, Harris is going to Washington. They also certainly know that proving that the results of the election were shifted in Harris’s favor would be almost impossible. The fraud that’s alleged to have occurred involved employees of a campaign consultant named Leslie McCrae Dowless having collected mail-in absentee ballots and potentially either altering votes or never submitting completed ballots to the state. Determining the scope of those changes with precision would be difficult.

North Carolina: ‘Guru of Elections’: Can-Do Operator Who May Have Done Too Much | The New York Times

Adam Delane Thompson wanted to vote but was not sure what to do with the absentee ballots he received in the mail this year for him, his fiancée and his daughter. So for guidance he called an old friend in Bladenboro, L. McCrae Dowless Jr., a low-level local official with a criminal record who nonetheless had once been feted as “guru of elections” in Bladen County. Mr. Dowless soon had the sealed ballots in his hands and was off to the post office to mail them, Mr. Thompson said. Mr. Thompson, who works in the maintenance department at a DuPont plant, said in an interview he was grateful. But the act was apparently illegal in North Carolina, where, except in limited circumstances, it is a felony to collect another person’s absentee ballot. In this rural region near the state’s southern border, where candidates are often intimately known as neighbors, friends or enemies, Mr. Dowless ran a do-it-all vote facilitating business that was part of the community fabric.

North Carolina: Distrustful, Desperate and Forgotten: A Recipe for Election Fraud | Politico

In the back office of the only liquor store within 30 miles of this low-lying town in eastern North Carolina, behind a window where he can see out better than customers can see in, Mark Gillespie was paying bills. “They never stop,” the manager of the ABC Store said. He looked up occasionally to see who was coming in: friends and family, coaches from the Dixie Youth Baseball league program he runs, parents of the Boy Scout troop he oversees. They’re the reason, he said, he had to be careful with his words when I asked about his county’s new status as the epicenter of election fraud in the United States. “I’m just mad about the whole thing,” the former county commissioner told me. “It really is embarrassing for my county, my little tiny county, to be on national news. Where I grew up at and call home.”