A new election is the gravest remedy available to this State agency that has, for a century, supervised elections meant to ensure “[a]ll political power is vested in and derived from the people; all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole.” N.C. CONST. art. I, § 2.
And yet, the substantial record before the State Board of Elections in this case lead this Board to unanimously conclude that the 2018 General Election for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District was corrupted by fraud, improprieties, and irregularities so pervasive that its results are tainted as the fruit of an operation manifestly unfair to the voters and corrosive to our system of representative government. A new election is necessary not only in the congressional contest, but also in two local contests caught in the long shadow of uncertainty caused by absentee ballot fraud funded principally by the Mark Harris for Congress Committee. Tampering, obstruction and disguise have obscured the precise number of votes either unlawfully counted or excluded, but substantial evidence supports our conclusion that the absentee ballot scheme and other irregularities cast doubt on the outcome of each contest subject to this Order.