Mitch McConnell SO MAD Democrats Forced GOP To Cheat In North Carolina Election

See what happens? This is what happens when you let black people vote!

In any sane reality, last week's vote to hold a new election in North Carolina's ninth congressional district following pervasive absentee ballot fraud by a GOP operative might provoke shame among Republicans. Or at least an attempt to condemn the fraud and insist that sort of thing has no place in the fine, upstanding Republican Party. Instead, ugly bag of mostly chutzpah and turtle meat Mitch McConnell insisted today that cheating by a Republican simply proves that Democrats are unbelievably corrupt when they say fraud by individual voters is not a serious problem (which of course it is not). Damn it, said McConnell, see what happens without voter ID? Also, please nobody point out that voter ID would have done absolutely fuck-all to prevent the fraud in NC-09, because the fraud didn't happen at the polls.

Guys, we think we've figured out why Republicans oppose the Green New Deal. Clearly, they worry eliminating fossil fuels might make gaslighting harder.

Here's Yertle just plain lying, and not coincidentally providing the go-to talking point for all right-wing discussion of NC-09:

On Senate floor, @senatemajldr McConnell shamelessly blames Dems for Mark Harris' election fraud in North Carolina,… https: //t.co/lQd2zBoIwY

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1551194148.0 

We're impressed by McConnell's description of the fraud. It's not that Republican Mark Harris hired a guy who ran an operation to illegally collect voters' mail-in ballots and fill them out to benefit Harris. Or that the same GOP operative may have discarded likely Democratic ballots. Heavens no! It just sort of happened, incidentally benefiting the Republican:

Soon after election day, allegations of illegal ballot harvesting and vote tampering clouded a close result. The wrongdoing seemed to have benefited the Republican candidate over the Democrat.

Mistakes were made. Jesus, Mitch, there's passive voice, and then there's lie-down drunk on the kitchen floor and weep voice. Now take a look at the very subtle shift in blame -- ballot tampering by a Republican? Nah, let's blame fraud by voters!

For years and years, every Republican who dared to call for common-sense safeguards for Americans' ballots was demonized by Democrats and their allies. We were hit with left-wing talking points insisting that voter fraud wasn't real. "Never happens," they said [...]

Now that an incident of very real voter fraud has become national news and the Republican candidate seems to have benefited, these longstanding Democratic talking points have been really quiet. Haven't heard much lately from Democrats lately about how fraud really happens. They've gone silent. Now there's a new interest in ensuring the sanctity of American elections.

Actually, no, there has not suddenly been a flood of Democrats calling for voter ID, because voter ID wouldn't have helped at all here. Absentee ballots were taken and fraudulently filled out by a GOP operative who knew damned well what he was doing was illegal. Forcing people to get an acceptable photo ID would not have stopped that, and there is still no evidence anywhere in the USA of massive "fraud" by voters. 

Not surprisingly, Dan McCready, the sore loser Democrat who somehow didn't happen to benefit from the election fraud perpetrated by a guy hired by Mark Harris, didn't seem to appreciate McConnell's call to secure our elections by making it harder for Americans to vote. This is because he clearly likes illegal voting.

Shameful @senatemajldr that you would twist #nc09 election fraud into your made-up witch-hunt for voter fraud. Eve… https: //t.co/d9bYDP9jKE

— Dan McCready for NC (@Dan McCready for NC) 1551202529.0 

Well, yes, but the voters were still involved, now weren't they? In fact, there's no denying that some of them may have even intended to vote for a Democrat. That is in itself a kind of fraud, because real Americans vote for Republicans. Obviously, that's why patriots like Mark Harris sometimes need to hire someone to help correct such errors.

Oh, hey, speaking of voter ID: On Friday, a North Carolina state court actually threw out the state's constitutional amendment requiring voter ID, on the grounds that the state's Republican-dominated legislature is itself illegitimate thanks to outrageous gerrymandering.

Wake County Superior Court Judge G. Bryan Collins wrote in his decision that the amendment to the state constitution, and another ballot measure capping the state's income tax, were both null and void from the get-go:

"An illegally constituted General Assembly does not represent the people of North Carolina and is therefore not empowered to pass legislation that would amend the state's constitution," he wrote.

When the legislature wrote the amendments and voted to place them on the 2018 ballot, many of the members who voted to do so had been elected under district lines that were ruled unconstitutional because they had been drawn to dilute the political power of African-American voters.

This is the second time a North Carolina voter ID law has been declared unconstitutional. The first time around, a federal court held the law had been designed to "target African Americans with almost surgical precision." 

Yr Wonkette is looking forward to Mitch McConnell explaining that if only there had been strict Voter ID at the time, Republicans never would have needed to gerrymander the state lege.

[ Aaron Rupar on Twitter / ThinkProgress / Vox / Raleigh News & Observer ]

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