The Daily - A Fraudulent Election in North Carolina

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

For months, allegations of fraud have swirled around a congressional race in North Carolina’s Ninth District, but the Republican at the center of the controversy has held on. Why is he giving up now? Guest: Alan Blinder, who covers the American South for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. For months, allegations of fraud have swirled around a congressional race in North Carolina's 9th District. But the Republican at the center of the controversy has held on. Why he's finally giving up. It's Wednesday, February 27th. As directed by law, the clerk of the House has prepared the official role of the representatives elect.

the official role of the representatives-elect. So it's January 3rd, and hundreds and hundreds of members of Congress are coming to Capitol Hill to be sworn in for the new Congress after a really bruising midterm election. Certificates of election, 434 seats in the 116th Congress have been received by the clerk of the House. But as everyone shows up on Capitol Hill, there's one seat everyone knows is going to remain empty. The clerk has not received a certificate of election for the 9th District of the state of North Carolina. And that's the House seat from North Carolina's 9th District. Alan Blinder covers the American South for The Times. The story of that seat and why it was empty on January 3rd

is this extraordinary tale of election fraud, the scale of which we've not really seen very often in American politics. So, Alan, take us back to when this story starts. Who was supposed to fill that seat in North Carolina? Well, that depends on who you ask. If you ask the Republicans, Mark Harris was destined for that seat in Congress. And I want you to know that this evening that this is a journey that really has been two years in the making. But I'm glad to report tonight it's just getting started. Mark Harris on election night thinks that he has managed to pull off a victory against Dan McCready, who was one of the most prized Democratic candidates of last year.

He thought he had won the election by about 905 votes. I'm going to Washington to be your voice in the 9th Congressional District. So Mark Harris goes on to Washington, goes to new member orientation. But back in North Carolina, people are starting to think that some of the numbers in his election look a little fishy. And people just started to wonder, is there something that went wrong in this campaign that let Mark Harris win? Now at 10, an election controversy. Allegations of fraud in one of the country's tightest races.

And what exactly seemed off about his election? What was it that was so fishy? Frankly, a lot of things seemed off. There was a concern about the number of absentee ballots, especially in one county. When Mark Harris declared victory, he sang Bladen County's praises. Thank God for Bladen and Union County. One month later, no one is laughing or applauding as state investigators look into the results of the 9th District election.

Mark Harris won something like 60-some-odd percent of absentee ballots in Bladen County. And what was unusual about that is Republicans accounted for less than 20 percent of the absentee ballots. So he won well more than half, while registered Republicans accounted for less than a fifth of those ballots. And that math doesn't quite make any sense because it would mean he was winning non-Republican absentee ballots, which is surprising. Something smelled really wrong to a lot of people looking at those numbers.

And how does Mark Harris explain all of this after the election? He says he won it fair and square. He says he ran an aggressive campaign. That's what Republicans say. They say that they made a really concerted push. They knew it would be a tight race, and they pulled out all the stops and were looking for votes wherever they could find them. Well, the state isn't so sure that Mark Harris is the clear winner, and they start digging into what happened. And meanwhile, in North Carolina, a bunch of us

reporters are driving around looking for anything we can find about what might have happened. We're knocking on doors. We're asking people, have you ever met anyone who came to collect your ballot, for example? And it doesn't take long before we start to learn about a man named McCray Dallas. We're learning more about the man at the center of the District 9 election fraud investigation and how he operates. McCray Dallas is a longtime political operative in Bladen County. He's in his 60s now. This is McCray Dallas. Here's a picture of him on the left. He's real thin. He's pretty slight in stature, smokes a lot of cigarettes. Mark Harris is not the only candidate that Dallas is connected to.

He was known as the elections guru, if you will, in Boyden County. He actually got a certificate for that once. A certificate saying that he's essentially the guy who knows the system best. He's the guy who knows where to find votes in Boyden County. And he had a long track record of working with Republicans and Democrats on their elections and helping people really scrounge up absentee votes to come up with winning margins. Mr. Dallas is accused of wrongdoing, basically using workers to forge signatures and collect ballots, which you can't even do in North Carolina. As reporters are digging into McCray Dallas's past, we realized very quickly that he's not just your run-of-the-mill political operative.

Dallas was part of the 2014 McVicker campaign, but was paid in a way that would not show up on campaign finance reports. He's a guy with felony convictions for fraud and perjury. In another document from the suit, Dallas himself confirms he worked for the 2014 campaign to get out the vote. He's a guy who's been investigated in the past for his political work but was never prosecuted. And it was not long after that that Mark Harris hired McCray Dallas and said, I want you to help me find absentee voters in Boyden County and help me win an election next year. absentee voters in Boyden County and help me win an election next year. At that point, we started to put the pieces together and we started to realize that there was probably something very wrong that had happened in Boyden County.

But we didn't know exactly what had happened until last week. what had happened until last week. We'll be right back. So last week, I went up to North Carolina for a hearing where the state was going to start showing its evidence of what it found during this investigation. a hearing where the state was going to start showing its evidence of what it found during this investigation. I will start with by thanking the North Carolina State Bar for allowing us to use their building

to conduct this hearing. So the hearing room's packed on Monday morning. This courtroom where lawyers usually go when they're in trouble, but it was one of the bigger courtrooms in Raleigh. Lawyers usually go when they're in trouble, but it was one of the bigger courtrooms in Raleigh. So we all crowd in there, waiting to hear for the first time what on earth the state has come up with. By statute to the opening of each meeting, we must read a conflict of interest statement and check to see if any members... Mark Harris himself is in the courtroom, sitting among his lawyers. And the first person to speak is the executive director of the elections board.

We believe the evidence that we will provide today will show that a coordinated, unlawful, and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme operated during the 2018 general election. And she immediately says that investigators had found an unlawful and coordinated effort to try to influence absentee voting. Witnesses, your staff. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Ms. Britt.

One of the state's star witnesses, a woman named Lisa Britt, takes the stand. And Lisa Britt is a stepdaughter of McCray Dallas, and she worked for him during the 2018 campaign. Did Mr. Dallas ask you to go out and request absentee ballots from potential voters? He did. And she starts to describe how McCray Dallas's operation worked. Bladen County is a poor county. So we were actually going out with the absentee request forms to give people the opportunity so everybody would have the opportunity to vote.

It just becomes this catalog of crime. Some of them would be in on some. I think it may have been people who had voted in previous elections or whatever. So we would fill out the top part. They would collect absentee ballots. They would fill in absentee ballots. They would forge signatures as witnesses for absentee ballots. Did he provide you instructions about not admitting to collecting ballots?

Yes, sir. And the operation was designed to make sure Mark Harris had enough absentee votes to win the election. It was an effort that was rooted in fraud, rooted in misconduct, and it was supposed to put Mark Harris over the top. over the top. So as the hearing goes on, we hear from more and more witnesses. We hear from another woman who worked for McCrae Dallas. We Dow. Ms. Dow. We hear from a consultant for Mark Harris. Ms. Strach, are you ready for your next witness, please? But then there's a big surprise. I have a witness on the stand called John Harris. And that's when the state calls Mark Harris' son, John Harris, up to the witness stand. Do you have an attorney here with you, even though you...

I do not, but I am wanting to represent myself in this capacity. John Harris is a 29-year-old lawyer for the Department of Justice. He's one of the single most self-assured lawyers I think I've ever seen. And he comes up to the witness stand, and he starts to tell a really remarkable

and compelling story. I expressed my concerns based on everything that I did know up to that point. For weeks and weeks and weeks, Mark Harris had been denying to just about everyone who would listen that he knew of any kind of wrongdoing

involving McCrae Dallas, that he had no reason to be suspicious of him. And he actually admitted that he had been the person responsible for hiring McCrae Dallas. But then John Harris gets up on the witness stand and the state pulls out an email that John Harris sent to his father the day after Mark Harris met with McCrae Dallas. This is an email

that I sent to my father, and I copied my mother. The email is John Harris, the son, telling his father that McCrae Dallas is trouble, that he had concerns about whether his operation was on the up and up. And so that's what this meant to summarize how these numbers seem so off. I think we realized we were watching a political collapse happen right in front of us. I just want to say this in closing. I love my dad and I love my mom. Okay.

And I think Mark Harris may have realized that too. I think that they made mistakes in this process and they certainly did things differently than I would have done them. Mark Harris was crying from where he was watching all of this. I mean, he was weeping as he watched his son testify. And frankly, when I'm coming out of this process, I'm just left thinking that we can all do a lot better than this. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

You're very sweet. Would you state your name, please? I'm Mark Harris. And then Mark Harris himself takes the stand, and his day begins as a disaster, and it gets worse. You didn't ask Dallas, are you harvesting ballots? Well, he had made that clear that he was not. He starts telling the elections board about how he had, in fact, hired McCray Dallas,

but that he didn't know that McCray Dallas or any of his workers were doing anything wrong. Well, I had no reason to hide this email. In fact, it was my understanding it was going to be produced. Eventually, Harris misleads the board with a few instances of what his critics thought was perjury. I did not consider Johns to be a warning that this was a problem and could be a real serious potential problem. And the state's bloggers realized that. And pretty quickly, it becomes clear that Mark Harris's loggers realize that, and pretty quickly it becomes clear that Mark Harris' own loggers realize that too.

So then what happens? I would ask for a short recess to have a discussion. His logger calls a recess, and there's a lot of confusion, frankly, in the courtroom over what on earth is happening.

Take our lunch break now. We all go to lunch. Meanwhile, there's some closed-door negotiating happening. We reconvene a little later. Dr. Harris, you know you're still on the road. And you're still here volunteering. And Mark Harris comes back out to the witness stand

and surprises everyone. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement that I wish to make. He gets up and talks about how he'd had some medical problems. On January 18th, I went to the hospital. After battling what we thought was bronchitis, I developed a severe infection that actually caused me to become septic. In the process of that illness, I experienced two strokes from which I'm still recovering. Though I thought I was ready to undergo the rigors of this hearing and I'm getting stronger, I clearly am not. And I struggled this morning with both recall and confusion. How he had offered what he called incorrect testimony. Through the testimony I've listened to over the past three days, I believe a new election should be called. And then he calls for a new election.

Wow. Yeah. It's become clear to me that the public's confidence in the ninth district seat general election has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. Mark Harris, with the lead that he has in this race, is suddenly calling for a brand new election. Yeah, I sent an all caps email to my editors. What did it say? I think it was something like, Harris calls for new election.

That's concise. Yeah, I mean, this was not what I was planning for. I think I had told my editors that morning there was no chance this would be resolved today. I mean, this was not what I was planning for. I think I had told my editors that morning there was no chance this would be resolved today. I mean, in the courtroom, you had dozens and dozens of people who have been listening to testimony. They've watched Mark Harris for months say that he deserves to be a member of the United States Congress. And then he just gets up and suddenly calls for a new election. It was one of those moments when you heard a lot of people gasp.

It wasn't just one person gasping. A whole bunch of us gasped. All right. Thank you, sir. No further. Call this meeting adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.

So Mark Harris leaves the room and a bunch of TV cameras chase after him. Then this five-member elections board votes unanimously to have a new election. That was on Thursday afternoon. And I spent the next few days asking Republicans the big question, will Mark Harris run again? And on Tuesday afternoon... Breaking news out of North Carolina, Republican Mark Harris says he will not run in a new election for the state's 9th district. In a statement, he said, quote,

given my health situation, the need to regain full strength, and the timing of this surgery the last week of March, I have decided not to file in the new election for Congressional District 9. He cited his health and said he would not be a candidate next time around. So there will be a new election, but Mark Harris will not be a candidate. There will be a new election, and Mark Harris will not be in it. So in the meantime, the people of the 9th District of North Carolina won't have any representation in Congress,

and that 9th District seat will remain empty. Alan, what have we learned from what happened in the 9th District of North Carolina? Well, we've gotten a really detailed playbook about how election fraud can happen in the United States. We've seen how absentee ballots are prone to abuse. And we've also seen a real embarrassment for Republicans in North Carolina and around the country.

For years and years, Republicans have been sounding an alarm about the possibility of fraud at the ballot box. And for years and years, Democrats have been saying that Republicans were blowing up those worries. They were using fraud as a pretext to be able to discriminate. discriminate. And now in North Carolina, we have the biggest case of election fraud in memory, and it was bankrolled by a Republican campaign. This was not voter fraud. This was election fraud. A lot of egg on a lot of people's faces. Election fraud, not voter fraud. And why does that distinction matter, do you think, Alan? Republican politicians have spent years trying to argue that individual voters are the problem when it comes to fraud in elections. What happened in North Carolina had nothing to do with individual voters. It was all about a coordinated effort to sway an election. It was a Republican campaign paying for illegal conduct.

That was the problem. Now there's a new interest in ensuring the sanctity of American elections. I've been focused for decades on protecting the integrity of elections. So, Alan, on Tuesday morning, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a speech. Now, Madam President, for years and years, every Republican who dared to call for common-sense safeguards for Americans' ballots was demonized by Democrats and their allies. In which he declared that what happened in North Carolina is, in his telling, evidence that there is, quote, very real voter fraud happening in the country. Now that an incident of very real voter fraud has become national news,

these longstanding Democratic talking points have been really quiet. Haven't heard much lately from Democrats about how fraud never happens. And he said that Democrats should look at this and realize that the Republican argument is right, that there is a problem, and that they should accept it. They've just discovered that this subject really matters. The lesson of the 9th District is not that fraud happens. The lesson of the 9th District is how fraud happens.

Maybe the Senate Majority Leader doesn't know the difference between election fraud and voter fraud. But a lot of people on Tuesday thought he was just conflating the two and trying to misdirect and muddy the waters and make people think that what Republicans had been warning about for years happened. But it didn't. Alan, thank you very much. We appreciate it. My pleasure.

Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that President Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, will portray the president in deeply unflattering terms during his testimony today before Congress. Relying on documents and his personal experience, Cohen is expected to describe what he says is Trump's use of racist language, lies about his will, and potential criminal conduct, including payments of hush money to two women who say

they had affairs with Trump. And on Tuesday night, the House voted to overturn President Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the Mexican border, with 13 Republicans breaking ranks to side with Democrats. The legislation, which seeks to block Trump from diverting money for his proposed border wall

without congressional approval, now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it faces stiffer opposition. And on Tuesday, for the first time in five decades, Indian warplanes crossed into Pakistan and conducted airstrikes against a jihadi militant camp in the northern part of the country. The airstrikes were a reprisal for a suicide attack carried out by the jihadis two weeks ago against India's military, which killed 40 soldiers. Information regarding the location of training camps in Pakistan and in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir has been provided to Pakistan from time to time. Pakistan, however,

denies their existence. According to India's foreign secretary, Pakistan has been repeatedly warned about the jihadis, but has done nothing to crack down on them. The existence of such massive training facilities capable of training hundreds of jihadis could not have functioned without the knowledge of the Pakistan authorities. The airstrikes immediately raised the possibility of war between two nuclear-armed rivals. But the Times reports that leaders of both India and Pakistan have deliberately given themselves options for de-escalating the situation. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.

See you tomorrow.