
There’s something very weird going on with this House election in North Carolina - smacktoward
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/30/18119546/north-carolina-9th-district-election-board-bladen-county
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tareqak
From the article:

These are the specific allegations made in the affidavits, first reported by
WSOC in Charlotte and also obtained by Vox:

One voter says a young woman came to her house and asked for her absentee
ballot because she was collecting them. The voter had made her choice for only
two offices on the ballot, but still gave her ballot to the young woman, who
said she would fill out the rest.

Another voter also says a young woman came to her house and claimed she was
responsible for collecting absentee ballots. The voter filled out her ballot
while the young woman waited; the woman then took the ballot, but never asked
the voter to sign it and did not put it in a sealed envelope.

A third voter says she did not request an absentee ballot but received one in
the mail anyway.

A fourth person says she saw unusual activity at a polling site: election
results being run after polls closed on the last day of early voting and
observed by people who were not elections judges, which she understood to be
“improper.” The person said she also helped tabulate absentee ballots after
the election that were quite worn and had “coding” written on them.

A fifth person, Dwight Sheppard, says he overheard people talking outside a
polling station on Election Day who said a well-known local operative, Leslie
McCrae Dowless, Jr., would be paid a $40,000 bonus if Harris won the election.

In another affidavit — signed and witnessed, but not notarized — a sixth
person said he actually talked to Dowless in April during the Republican
primary, in which Harris upset sitting Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger,
According to this person, Dowless said he was working on the absentee vote for
Harris, that he had 80 people working for him, and that he accepted cash
payments only from campaigns.

\--

What's the significance of a sworn affidavit? Are there penalties for making a
false statement in sworn affidavit, and if so, what are they? I'm asking
because I want to understand the significance / weight of presenting these
sworn affidavits as evidence, and not to question the truthfulness of the
statements being made. My thinking is that people wouldn't make a false
statement if the cost of doing so is high, and I'm using this cost to discern
if "something very weird is going on" or if this series of events is a string
of coincidences.

~~~
singingboyo
I'm no lawyer, and therefore may be invoking Cunningham's Law - if so, please
correct me!

According to my recollection and brief searching, sworn affidavits taken under
oath and making false statements in a sworn affidavit is therefore considered
perjury.

However, they're not usually considered as evidence without the witness is
deceased or otherwise incapable of giving evidence in court. I believe they
may be used to refresh a witness' memory.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, nor am I even in the US, so exact judicial
conventions etc. are beyond me, but I see them as being less serious than
court testimony. Possibly serious enough to get a case to court, but if
witnesses are then unwilling to testify in court I suspect the case would not
get far.

~~~
woodandsteel
I think you're right about court trials, but his is about the considerably
different matter of why an election commission has decided to delay approving
an election result pending further investigation.

------
ubernostrum
It's worth remembering that North Carolina has been in the news many times
recently for electoral and governmental controversies, including its district
map.

One of many sources quoting David Lewis, one of the Republican politicians who
made clear their intent:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/2018/08/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/2018/08/27/fc04e066-aa46-11e8-b1da-
ff7faa680710_story.html?noredirect=on)

 _“I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” said Rep.
David Lewis, a Republican member of the North Carolina General Assembly,
addressing fellow legislators when they passed the plan in 2016. “So I drew
this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.”_

 _He added: “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to
10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to
draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”_

 _When voters went to the polls that fall, the 10-3 outcome was exactly as
Lewis had predicted, even though Republican candidates won just 53 percent of
the statewide vote._

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75dvtwin
Republicans are saying that deps are trying to steal the election from the
North Carolina voters.

>"... Early Thursday, Democrats made vague allegations of “possible
irregularities.”

Late Thursday, WSOC TV, Channel 9, provided some elaboration on those details.
“Channel 9 has obtained several affidavits out of Bladen County, North
Carolina, [one of the eight counties in the district] voicing concerns about
how the U.S. House District 9 race in November was handled,” WSOC reported.

Those affidavits, however, contained no offers of evidence but instead general
speculation that something was off in the absentee ballot counts.

Democrats pounced on the unanimous, bipartisan vote of the State Elections
Board not to certify the election.

…"

[http://tennesseestar.com/2018/11/30/are-democrats-trying-
to-...](http://tennesseestar.com/2018/11/30/are-democrats-trying-to-steal-a-
north-carolina-congressional-seat-already-certified-by-county-boards-of-
election-as-a-905-vote-gop-win/)

