A lot of people claim that voter fraud is rampant and as a result is threatening our democracy. To an extent, they’re right. Mark Harris, Republican candidate for the 9th Congressional District in North Carolina, has been accused of just that, election fraud, highlighting how the discourse of our voter fraud discussion is often focused on the wrong aspects.
To summarize what happened, it is suspected that Harris hired McCrae Dowless to illegally collect absentee ballots from voters to ensure Harris’ victory. Reportedly, Dowless would hire people to collect and sign voter’s absentee ballots. This is illegal since North Carolina law prohibits someone other than a legal guardian or a relative to take someone’s absentee ballot.
It is then suspected that Dowless would then hold on to some of those ballots. An analysis from a Harvard University professor noted that certain counties in Harris’ congressional district either experienced high rates of unreturned absentee ballots and a large number of votes for Republican candidates from those areas.
Although Mark Harris claims he didn’t know of Dowless’ illegal operation, Harris’ son mentioned that [Harris] had previous contacts with Dowless prior to the election. As a result, Mark Harris will not run for the re-election for the North Carolina 9th Congressional District. Needless to say, this is a serious case as politicians are threatening the United States Republic by disregarding people’s votes in order to win.
This entire situation highlights something important, but neglected, about the safety of our elections. US citizens should not be concerned with voter fraud, but rather how politicians try to illegally influence elections.
Many politicians claim voter fraud is rampant, and how people will try to impersonate others to vote again. However, this sentiment is objectively false. Several studies have shown time and again that voter fraud rarely occurs.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of attention to how elections are monitored, especially for people who vote via absentee ballot. There many instances where absentee ballots are purposely mismanaged, often leading to people’s votes not being counted during an election.
For example, in Florida during the 2018 Midterms, over 4,000 mailed absentee ballots were not counted because local offices stated that the signatures did not match with their previous records, even though handwriting changes as people age.
This situation is somewhat similar to what is happening in North Carolina. Although the ballots were discarded legally, it highlights an issue on how administrative officials overseeing an election use unethical tactics to unfairly win elections.
Overall, the election fraud in the North Carolina 9th District highlights important issue revolving around our elections. Citizens should not be concerned with so much with individual voter fraud, but rather with how our elections are handled and managed. Politicians cannot prevent someone from voting over arbitrary requirements or running illegal operations to literally take someone’s vote away. So, for those who live in the 9th Congressional District, vote for someone who will uphold the sanctity of our elections.
