RALEIGH – Formal protests are being filed to challenge potentially fraudulent absentee ballots cast for Roy Cooper and other Democrats in 11 additional counties. These protests follow the discovery of a North Carolina Democrat Party-funded political action committee which appears to have paid individuals to fill out and witness hundreds of fraudulent absentee ballots for Democrats including Roy Cooper in Bladen County.
In addition to funneling money to the Bladen County Improvement Association PAC, the North Carolina Democratic Party simultaneously transferred money to political action committees in these 11 counties. Similar absentee voting and handwriting patterns as in Bladen County have been discovered in at least one of these counties, suggesting these PACs may have been harvesting and witnessing multiple absentee ballots as well.
“It appears that our worst fears have come true and this absentee ballot fraud scheme may run deeper than just Bladen County,” said Russell Peck, Pat McCrory’s campaign manager. “Unfortunately, we may also have uncovered the real reason Roy Cooper fought so hard against efforts to prevent voter fraud as attorney general. These voter fraud concerns must be addressed before the results of the election can be finalized.”
A protest has been filed today in Halifax County and additional protests are being filed by registered voters in Durham, Edgecombe, Franklin, Guilford, Nash, Northampton, Robeson, Vance, Wake and Warren counties. The protests urge each county board of elections conduct a full scale investigation into these absentee ballots and review all witness signatures on these absentee ballot envelopes to look for evidence of obvious ballot harvesting.
These protests also request that the county election boards review these envelopes before certifying the final number of lawful votes on Friday.
Many of these counties denied citizens the right to review absentee ballot envelopes to look for similar patterns, but there are thousands of absentee ballots in these 11 counties that need to be reviewed to ensure that only lawful, valid votes are counted in this election.