Last year, we were in another, but smaller, crisis. The Democrats were mad-as-hell about McCrae Dowless ‘harvesting’ ballots for Mark Harris in the 9th Congressional District. Once the smoke cleared and the facts were on the table almost everyone agreed, a new election was called, and laws were passed to make sure that type of fraud didn’t happen again.
Now due to coronavirus, the Governor’s appointees on the Board of Elections want to dramatically expand ‘Mail-in’ voting – the same type of voting McCrae Dowless abused. Now there’s no doubt coronavirus has, and will, cause some hard changes in behavior but let’s step back a moment and think about this one.
First, why the urgency? Hopefully, soon, we won’t be sheltered in place and the virus will be waning. Wouldn’t waiting, say, to summer lead to a wiser decision?
Second, aren’t there questions the Election Board needs to answer about its plan?
Last year, only a fraction of the voters used mail-in (absentee) ballots in Bladen County during the 9thCongressional District Race. What’s the potential for fraud if a million people vote by mail in November?
Is the Cooper administration ready to implement such a major change in November? Dragging out unemployment checks has been bad enough, bungling an election would be another major train wreck.
When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight, was never the slogan of the Post Office. Can it handle the increased workload?
Third, if it turns out we do have to make changes in how we vote in November, is there a more practical and less susceptible to fraud solution than telling millions of people, ‘Hey. Go online and order your ballot.’
I’m afraid the Democratic Board of Elections may have handed us a political fix for something that ain’t broke. And we’ve all seen how political solutions tend to backfire in unexpected ways.
We have enough messes on our hands right now. Let’s take a deep breath – and wait until summer – to be sure we get this one right.