NC elections board postpones hearing over contested House race until January

The North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement announced Friday that it would delay an evidentiary hearing into fraud allegations in the 9th District’s House election until Jan. 11.

The board initially planned to have its hearing on or before Dec. 21, but said in a statement that it needed more time to continue its investigation into claims of illegal activity surrounding absentee ballots in the Nov. 6 race. 

“State investigators are awaiting additional documents from parties subpoenaed in this matter and finalizing the investigation prior to the hearing,” the board of elections body said in a statement.

{mosads}Republican Mark Harris currently leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes, but the board has refused to certify the results, citing the unusually high number of requested absentee ballots, many of which were unreturned, in rural Bladen County and neighboring Robeson County.

The board set the evidentiary hearing for 10 a.m. on Jan. 11. That would be after Jan. 3, when the 116th Congress is due to be sworn in under a new Democratic majority after the party flipped 40 seats in November. 

Democratic leaders have suggested they will refuse to seat Harris on Jan. 3. 

{mosads}Several voters have claimed in affidavits that a contractor working for Harris’s campaign, Leslie McCrae Dowless, ran a scheme that paid people to illegally collect voters’ absentee ballots.

The claims are leading to rising expectations that a new race will be called, including redoing primaries, after additional allegations raised the prospect that early votes were shared with nonelection officials prior to the Nov. 6 contest. 

Republican officials in the state have left the door open to a new race. 

North Carolina GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse has said he would back a new election if the elections board “can show a substantial likelihood” that absentee ballot fraud changed the outcome of the election.