by WorldTribune Staff, May 18, 2017
North Carolina progressives are intent on squelching reports of voter fraud in the state by filing lawsuits against citizens who report alleged fraud, according to a report.
In a memo to its membership, Democracy NC “appears on a mission … to discourage honest citizens from filing protests and put more roadblocks up to detecting voter fraud,” the Civitas Institute reported on May 17.
After the close November 2016 gubernatorial election, hundreds of protests were filed by voters pointing out alleged irregularities (including and especially in absentee balloting), such as ineligible voters, dead voters, and voters who were active felons, the report notes.
“As is the case with protests in every election, some of the protests were dismissed for various reasons, including; lack of evidence and even technicalities. But, some of the protests were upheld and revealed voter fraud and serious voting irregularities.”
Voters, as the only people allowed, by law, to file election protests and challenges, are “the first line of voter fraud detection in North Carolina, and will ultimately act as a prosecutor in a quasi-judicial realm,” the report said.
Democracy NC and its leader and lobbyist, Bob Hall, “have tried to paint these citizens as being part of a criminal scheme concocted by McCrory’s campaign. Using a dubious ‘report’ as a prop, Hall has called for a criminal investigation into the McCrory campaign for daring to question possible wrongdoing,” Civitas Institute said.
Hall’s report “is immediately discredited because it includes 257 protests over absentee ballots from Bladen County,” Civitas said. That’s nearly half the 577 protests Hall claims were unsubstantiated. Hall blatantly and purposely misleads anyone reading the report by claiming all 257 protests were dismissed for lack of evidence. The truth, which Hall fails to mention, is that the board voted unanimously to send the voter fraud case to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for investigation.”
In his report, “while Hall implies that people who file election protests may be criminals, he also suggests that people who do commit voter fraud do so merely by ‘accident or out of ignorance of the voting rules for probationers, rather than any intent,’ ” the Civitas report said.
Civitas noted that a lawsuit is brewing in Guilford County “where four of the nine Guilford County voters named in an election protest petition filed a defamation lawsuit against the voter who filed the election protest in November. To no one’s surprise, the activist Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) is representing these voters. SCSJ in recent years has taken the lead in lawsuits suing the State of North Carolina over election reform and redistricting.”
Civitas continued: “Even though SCSJ must know that the individual who filed the election protest followed North Carolina election law, the group filed the lawsuit against him to bring about a change to election law to keep people from bringing election protests. Their intimidation tactics could put a stop to most if not all election protests. After all, if filing a complaint means you will be automatically involved in the expensive and time-consuming business of defending yourself in court, citizens will be deterred from acting.”
Memo details North Carolina leftists’ plan to cripple efforts to report voter fraud added by World Tribune on
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