Vote Fraud, in the Flesh

North Carolina throws out an election after a mail-in ballot fiasco. For months, Republican Mark Harris urged North Carolina’s elections board to certify his 905-vote victory last year so he could take his seat in Congress. Now Mr. Harris has finally admitted what was apparent all along: The results in the state’s 9th District were tainted by fraud. On Thursday a new election was ordered, and good luck to the GOP there after this scandal.

Mr. Harris, a Baptist pastor, ran for federal office unsuccessfully in 2014 and 2016. His third try appeared to be the charm. He portrayed the Republican incumbent, Rep. Robert Pittenger, as a spendthrift swamp creature, complicit in “mortgaging the future of our kids and our grandkids.” Mr. Harris won the primary by 828 votes. He then defeated Democrat Dan McCready by a similar margin.

It didn’t take long for suspicions to be raised. In rural Bladen County, mail-in ballots went for Mr. Harris 61% to 38%, though only 19% of them came from registered Republicans. In the primary, he had won that county’s mail-in vote 96% to 4%. Some residents said they had given their ballots to door-knockers, but such “ballot harvesting” is illegal in North Carolina. Investigators zeroed in on a Harris operative named McCrae Dowless.