NCGOP’s Woodhouse on NC-09: ‘There Was Conspiracy and McCready Was In On It’

RALEIGH – While the constant drip of new revelations and allegations of fraud has seemed to dry up, the 9th Congressional District saga is still dragging on, and promises to reemerge in full force if another election is called.

Democratic candidate Dan McCready, who lost the election by nearly 1,000 votes, may be quietly planning for a renewed campaign, according to the Charlotte Observer, the Republicans are not exactly giving up. Actually, the NCGOP is ramping up the rhetoric aimed at McCready.

Friday from the Charlotte Observer:

Harris could not be reached. But Dallas Woodhouse, the state GOP’s executive director, claims McCready is behind a “political hit job.”

“There was a conspiracy and I believe McCready was in on it,” Woodhouse said. “Can I prove it in court? Not yet . . . The perpetrator is McCready and the victims are more than three-quarters of a million people not represented in Congress.”

Woodhouse is referring to the approximately 750,000 voters in the 9th District that, not only don’t currently have representation, but many of which will will essentially have been disenfranchised should another special election be called. Special elections typically have far lower turn out, and so the argument is that everyone who voted in the original election will be ignored in favor of the few that vote in a hypothetical special election.

Obviously, it is on those voters to make sure their voices are heard again.

Though a truckload of allegations have been made about illegal vote harvesting or election fraud, as of yet no hard conclusions have been made that prove it amounted to a level that affected the result of the election.

The smell of scandal and fraud is hardly exclusive to the Republican campaign of Mark Harris and the sketchy contractors they hired in the south eastern portion of the district. The former chair of the State Board of Elections, Democrat Joshua Malcolm, was outed by WBTV as having had secret communications with a Bladen County Democratic operative in the days leading up to the election. Malcolm, then vice chair, was the member to make a motion to not certify the NC-09 congressional race.

Making matters more complicated, the Board has been dissolved, and won’t be reconstituted until the end of this month. It’s an open question as to whether or not Gov. Roy Cooper will re-appoint Malcolm to lead the Board, or if he’s finally submit to reason and appoint a Board that both sides can have confidence in.

Court cases regarding the matter are progressing, with a hearing scheduled January 22 in Wake County Superior Court.

In light of all this, the NCGOP is reinvigorating its push to get Harris certified the winner. That all depends on the hard evidence revealed in Board hearings and lawsuits. As such, get ready for another onslaught of 9th District news starting January 31.