It’s time for Democrats to get REAL stern with their constituents. If Dems voted, we’d have control of two branches and two SCOTUS picks. But they don’t.
Democrats run all over the country sucking up to swing GOP voters and Independents because they VOTE. If Democrats got out and actually participated, they wouldn’t have to do that.
If the Dems lose in 2020, it’s time for them to place blame squarely where it belongs - their own party.
Come 2020 when preexisting condotions aren’t covered and your house and barn are in flood water, shut up! You sat back and took it. Ladies, your reproductive rights are gone, too bad. LBGTQ, good luck.
But because each group didn’t get all they want, they’d rather stay home and get worse than nothing. They get the GOP.
2
Funny how what little real election fraud there is is done by Republicans.
2
There is absolutely no sense of decency, morality, or abiding by the law left in the Republican Party. And partly this is because of the terrible corruption of so-called "Christians"--pretty much almost every white person in the South, eh?, but, then, also in places like Indiana. No, no, I know that there are many who actually are Christians, but the melding of Southern Baptists with the Republican Party has got to be one of the most terrible developments of our time--history books are sure to spend some time on it.
2
Good luck to Mr McCready. He seems like a man of integrity and decency and the citizens of his district would be well represented by him. But the real hero of this story is Harris's son.
2
“This is our most sacred right in America — to vote,” he said. “It’s a right that people have fought and died for.” To have it corrupted like this was wrong.
Amen.
2
“An Evangelical minister”....with what we are seeing now, need I say more...
1
And I thought the elections in Venezuela were fixed .. is this really America?
Thanks for this story; it illuminates the depths to which some people will go to be elected. That Harris was outed by his own son, though, is encouraging; and also that McCready was so determined to let in the light on the creatures in the shadows. I hope he wins the new election. I hope he wins it overwhelmingly.
10
Stories like this one ought to give me hope and make me feel better. But all I feel is deep sadness. Truth, honor, fidelity to a higher calling have all left this country, it seems. To me, Republicans have no morals left. How they can support that man in the oval office is a mystery to me. But they do and continue to do so no matter what he does or says. He isn't fit to shine McCready's shoes, much less Obama's. Character matters, or it ought to.
I no longer recognize our country. I was brought up to believe in honesty and truth. Those ideas have been tossed aside so people can win at any cost and having won, keep their seats at any cost.
No, we Democrats are not still angry that Hillary lost. We got over that a long time ago. What we cannot abide is the completely unfit person in the White House, a liar, bully, cheat, narcissist, and willfully ignorant child.
106
@Pat Hoppe - very well said.
12
I feel for Mr. McCready, truly. The surprise, anguish, and bitterness he feels has to be akin to what I felt on November 10, 2016, when I realized 30 million of my fellow citizens were willing to give their country away to the most corrupt individual ever to sit in the White House.
Expecting republicans to play fair is like expecting a rattlesnake not to bite if you put it in your pocket.
84
@SteveZodiac
You mentioned that 30 million people voted for Trump.
I may not be the first commenter to correct you, but there were 62.8 million Americans who were (to use your words) "willing to give their country away to the most corrupt individual ever to sit in the White House." Individual Number 1, to be exact.
I had lunch today with one of those 62.8 million people, my dear sister. I love her, but I detest her politics. We managed, mostly, to skirt political topics. When we did touch on them, I realized how hard-shelled she is about our president and about conservative issues.
And I saw again how much she hates "liberals." Maybe, like me, she loves me as a person, but she hates my politics. I hope so--and I think so, most of the time.
Is this how fractured the rest of the country is? If so, God help us.
18
@TinyBlueDot Been around a long time and I have never seen it so divisive since the Viet Nam days. Unlike the Viet Nam sutuation the Trump divide seems more regional though a recent survey shows 1 in 6 people have stopped talking to a relatvie because of politics. To crib a line from the New Zealand national antham - God defend this free land!
6
@SteveZodiac I've been bitterly disappointed since the famous Mueller report came out - hearing so much from our divided country that democrats are " sore losers", and there was no collusion on our last presidential election - the report proves it. It's so not true. Every one of us as Americans should have been 100% behind the investigation into our election.That stands for every election in our country - including McCready's. I am sorry and ashamed this has happened... to all of us - for we are poorer for it.
8
Thank you Mr. McCready. And you too, Mr. Bruni.
3
“This probably sounds, like, totally cheesy,” he said, “but I just love this country, and we’re not going to fix what’s wrong with it until we get better people there.”
It doesn’t sound “totally cheesy” in the least bit to this combat veteran. Mr. McCready is shouldering the same burden all the veterans who got back and I shoulder. We have a responsibility to do our bit to make this country the place we expected it to become, including for those who didn’t make it back – all of them all the way back to our Revolutionary War. All our citizens share in this but combat veterans sense it acutely.
It’s about, and fulfilled through, integrity and seeking common ground so everyone represented feels they and their family can reasonably move ahead in their lives. These two build foundations on which communities can thrive and grow. Fear-stoked anger and hate attract attention but build nothing except a record of destruction and missed opportunities.
Rev. Martin Luther King said, “We can live together as brothers” (and sisters - I add) “or die together as fools.” It refers to the Biblical passage in Exodus when Moses’ scouts returned with fearful lies about monsters in the promised land. For believing that, a generation wandered and died in the wilderness. That’s how we find ourselves wandering in Trump’s gawd-awful wilderness.
211
@Liam Jumper as a fellow veteran from another time (Desert Storm/Shield) thank you for your service. You are right, I feel VERY strongly my duty to serve and protect this country from both foreign AND domestic threats. I take that oath serious til the day I die.
11
@Todd and @Liam Jumper......Thank you BOTH for the service you gave to this country and the continued service you show! This citizen is grateful!!
2
“There’s this big tension that I feel,” he told me. “I will always be someone who genuinely wants to work with both sides.”
As a lifelong Democrat, I am here to tell Mr. McCready this is no longer possible. Trump voters do not want to reach out.They do not want to compromise. They do not want to take any steps toward the center.
Every Democratic candidate, including Mr. McCready must write off Trump voters. Now. They'll never vote for you. And they've shown that if their candidates have to cheat to win, well, that's not a problem.
It's time for the Democrats like Mr. McCready -- who by all accounts seems like a very thoughtful, intelligent young man -- to turn back to us. Your base, remember? We are the 60% who believe that health care should be a right, that we should provide a safety net for our seniors and the most vulnerable among us, that meaningful climate change and gun control legislation are long past due.
Now, Trump voters don't want any of this. They only want a president who tells them that as whites, they are the only "real" Americans, and the rest of us should accept the scraps of second-class citizenship.
Trump voters don't want affordable health care or higher education if it benefits anyone other than themselves. They would rather see their own children do without.
And their true "interests"? An America which is white-only controlled now and in the future. This is all they want. This is all they've ever wanted. Walk away from them, Mr. McCready.
283
@Charles Dodgson
Still, if Fox News suddenly told them to vote for a Democrat, would they do it? I think they would, because Fox would present it the same way they present their right-wing extremist drum-beat.
3
@Charles Dodgson I agree, and case-in-point is the comment by Patrick McCord, above. Republicans don't care about facts, and their nastiness towards all Democrats is beyond disgusting.
19
"But he has learned that on top of that, “They cheat to steal votes. And now they’re sending emails attacking Democrats, saying Democrats forced a new election. It’s like zero moral compass — literally zero. I didn’t expect that.”"
Thank you Frank Bruni for sharing your interview with Dan McReady. What a breath of fresh air until losing to election fraud, fighting it, and ending up cynical about American elections.
I am glad, however, that he's staying in the fight, no matter what happens. His district needs his passion on one of the biggest and most important issues in America: protecting the franchise.
Among other things, the blatant and barely hidden vote stealing by Harris--a minister no less!-- tells us that the only fraud we have to fear is perpetrated by the party that has spent decades accusing Democrats and immigrants of what they've routinely done and lied about.
430
@christineMcM Exactly. The Republicans, among whom trump is now the prime example, demonstrate the psychological principle of projection. Only with them, it's not an unconscious psychological phenomenon but a deliberate calculated strategy to portray their opponents--whom they regard as enemies--in their own self-denied likeness.
29
@christineMcM McCready isn't cynical. He lost his naivete, came face to face with some ugly truths that he had never directly confronted before, yet he still believes he can make a difference. And he wants to do so. That is so hopeful, but his idealism and values and his belief in possibility have now been tested and they withstood the test. That is the farthest thing from cynicism.
24
@christineMcM Vote stealing by a minister? Of course. They believe that any tactic to win one for their god is moral.
17
I live in district 9 and campaigned hard for Dan and many other democrats. We plan to do the same for him in the special election. He deserves this seat!
1
It would be nice to think of the voter fraud in North Carolina as a Republican thing exclusively, but Dowless - the hands-on engineer of the voter fraud - has worked for Democrats as well as Republicans.
He got caught while working his black magic for a Republican, but we should be careful about the holier-than-thou.
1
@Benjamin Teral, I am certain you can provide credible citations for your assertion!
Great article, the one sticking point I have is the continued false equivalence of "both sides cheat." No, Democrats have never cheated in elections in modern history, and not on the scale that Republicans do. The fact that the GOP continues to feign ignorance and has the gall to accuse Democrats of "causing trouble" just utterly astounds me. What happened to our democracy? Why would an older woman say at a Bannon rally the other day that if we were going to turn into a dictatorship, she'd proudly support Trump as a dictator? And everyone, including Bannon, clapped for her?
1
Harris forgot he cheated to win an election? Got it. That's a new one...maybe Trump should try it.
What is it that drives so many Republicans and their thirst for power, by hook or by crook?
Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams, Dan McCready....
I'm sensing a pattern.
Living in the same television market as Mr. McCready, I have heard his messages and followed the now-voided election results and the charges against the GOP operative that allegedly illegally collected ballots from rural absentee voters.
I am impressed with Mr. McCready, glad his opponent dropped out and pray that the next election is an honest one.
We cannot afford such naivete as McCready's any longer. The naive must wake up to the mendacity of the Republican Party and face the fact that we are in a war for the soul of America against a ruthless, cruel Party willing to follow their faux-blonde leader into Hell in the name of power and the wealth it promises.
I believe that since the Republicans have been convicted of deliberate fraud and wrongdoing, the election should be awarded to the Democrat McCready, thus saving him the expense of another election. I hope the national Democrats give him lots of money to educate the locals and help him win this election.
1
In the olympics, cheaters lose their medal and the next best performer gets the medal. In north carolina we run the race again. What does that tell the competitors? There is no penalty for cheating in a North Carolina election - that's what.
the GOP should foot the bill for the cost of the repeat election at least.
The result of a new election is less than satisfying. The "winner" cheated. The "loser" should have been declared the real winner.
But he will be.
It's a nice little story about cheating caught. But, like many, I suspect cheating in rural areas like this is rampant.
As a Democrat in District 9 for over 50 years I am so proud of Dan ! Perhaps we will now have a good and honest person representing us. I hope such investigations will extend far and wide as election frauds have got to be stopped. Surely the publicity from this article by Mr. Bruni, the many responses to it, as well as other notices will start the ball rolling.
1
We Catholics don't know much, but we know how to rank sins. A venial sin is a no-biggie, like disobeying your parents, and gets you 3 weeks in purgatory. A mortal sin is very bad and earns the sinner eternity in hell. Can't get worse than that, right?
Wrong. The worst sin in the Catholic catechism is: sacrilege! This is a mortal sin plus. The plus is that you didn't just offend God; you slapped God right across the face.
Sacrilege occurs when you debase that which is holy. The big eg from my childhood was desecration of the communion bread, the "host," viewed as the body and blood of Christ. To treat the host with disrespect was a horror beyond any that I could imagine.
What Republicans did was not just a mortal sin; it was a sacrilege against democracy, against our Constitution, against our flag and the republic for which it stands.
McCready knows this. He said, “This is our most sacred right in America — to vote. It’s a right that people have fought and died for.”
He gets sacrilege. His opponents do not. If anything should be nonpartisan, his attitude should be. If the vote is not sacred in our country, nothing is.
7
A breath of fresh air you are Mr. McCready. Stay the course.
1
Republican + evangelical = fraud. Sadly there are far too many dupes available to fool.
7
That’s a lot of talk and hypocrisy from a newspaper writer who kept trumpeting Hillary for president way before the primary was held.
Instead of finding out how Debbie Waserman gifted HRC the nomination and making that a public scandal, the writer kept pushing this lady for president, despite the obvious fact that the DNC had tilted the election on her favor, and not once did we hear ‘hey that is not right, I’ll investigate’.
Want to talk about election fraud?
Go blow the lid on DWS, HRC and the DNC, then write a book and win a Peabody for it. Then you might have a leg to stand when calling out some one on election fraud.
2
@AutumnLeaf....There is a slight difference. Political parties are not public entities. They are not enshrined in the Constitution. They make their own rules. They choose who they want to choose and how they want to choose them. The fact that many states still use a caucus system, which can easily be packed, and is in no way democratic, should have been a clue.
4
Republicans have a very strange relationship with integrity and democracy these days. The reality is that the party is a rotten, degenerate mess and it's veering dangerously into fascism of the sort now common in Eastern Europe. These people must be stopped now.
6
Not a bad attempt, now that the Mueller business and much larger targets failed, NYT scales down quite a bit and finds outrageous issues on a more local level.
And no legal way you say, to fix this 'outrage' and get a Dem where he rightfully belongs (which they in most cases naturally belong unless something really horrid and illegal stands in their way)?
"We cheated, but don't want you to notice or talk about it."
We notice. You won't get away with it any longer, even in NC, GA, TX or anywhere else you try to cheat in elections.
1
Dan McCready's case is symptomatic of the wide-scale subversion of our democracy by the Republican Party.
The Republicans win elections by trickery, deception and massive amounts of dark corporate money (thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts). Remember that Nixon cut a deal with the Vietnamese to stay out of peace talks before the 1968 election. Reagan cut a deal with the Iranians to keep the US prisoners until the election of 1980 was over. Floridian voter fraud and the Supreme Court put the un-elected GW Bush in the White House. Since then the GOP has counted on systematic gerrymandering and wide scale voter suppression to stay in power. They have been assisted in these schemes by the Koch Brothers, the Mercers and their kind through huge contributions to finance the capture of local governments that manage the electoral process (Red Map gerrymandering directed by Karl Rove).
Most recently in 2016 Republicans were assisted by extensive Russian interference which took advantage of Republican polling data provided by Paul Manafort while he was managing Trump's campaign
Telling the disturbing story of theft of McCready's election is important. The American public needs to be aware of how corrupt our electoral process has become at the hands of the minority Republican Party. They will do anything to hold power.
7
I'm fed up with having the most important aspect of our democratic republic - free and fair elections - stolen from the people.
If it were up to me, I'd make any sort of election-tampering a capital crime, and I'd enforce it 100%. As long as there are no serious consequences for stealing elections, it will continue to be done.
4
Frank, you have told this story well, but I can't agree that the system worked in the end. It failed miserably. McCready's election was stolen from him, Harris belongs in jail and should be barred from running for office ever again, the people of his district have been unrepresented, and McCready shouldn't have to face another election after the last one was hijacked.
9
"It’s like zero moral compass — literally zero."
Truer words are rarely spoken.
7
Really good article. This election was such a sad affair! And it reminds me of the "old days" when local political bosses controlled the ballot box. We need men like McCready in politics, but they must bring with them a strong sense of reality. They do need to realize how corrupt the political system is. It's the only way they can work effectively within it, by going around-over-and under the corruption to get their goals accomplished. And they need to know how to use those politicians to achieve their vision. I worked in government and it took me a year or more to figure out that the corruption, little and not-so-little, is systemic and you're not going to fix that anytime soon. You have to set your sight on YOUR prize, and go for it without succumbing.
3
McCready should have gotten the seat. The local Republicans should pay the price and bear the responsibility for nominating a cheater. Instead they get a new election, where they can find a cleverer or sneakier way to cheat and win after all.
3
I think it's becoming very plainly obvious that, counter to the popular narrative, it's the Republicans who are the radical party in this country.
What else would you call a party more concerned with disenfranchisement, dirty tricks, slander, continuous lying about practically everything of importance, and so many other topics that it's tiresome to name them all?
This is your party, GOP, and your President Trump, both sketchy, skeezy anti-American-values entities that for too long have worn the mantle of "Patriots" under false colors.
2
This series of events underscores the blatant idiocy and hypocrisy of the evangelical and far-right ideologues:
McCready, in every way, is the perfect candidate: A proven patriot, smart, forward thinking; the kind of person we need more of in congress, on either side of the aisle.
So, purely out of fear for intelligence and forward thinking, the Republicans take action:
An evangelical commits a crime and the leader of the Republican party calls it "voter fraud" and blames the Democrats.
4
For a half century republicans have run on the notion of government being inherently corrupt from top to bottom and then when elected do all in their power to insure that it is so.
We are a fascist Nation right now and unless We the People get out and overwhelm the polls to install Democrats in all places of power in the government it is going to get worse.
8
The one element of this story that I find most distressing is that the "operative" is the only one indicted. This is not a person who was acting alone without some direction/support from a higher up. Otherwise, why would he do it? His guy winning may have entailed some benefits for him, but this does not seem to be a one-off thing. Others knew, and they have avoided any punishment.
5
The bottom line here folks is the Republicans are loosing to a changing, non-white Democratic. Because of this change, they cannot sustain power unless they change some of their policy positions, which seems unlikely.
The primary Republican strategy is to lie, cheat, and steal. They have been doing this for decades and it’s a strategy that has worked quite well for them. Voter Fraud? Routine. Manipulate elections? No problem. Engage with a hostile, foreign power to throw an election? Check. Gerrymandering? Done.
Going back to Gore vs Bush up to the present, there hasn’t been one election that wasn’t manipulated or stolen by one or more Republican stooges, starting with Sandra Day O’Connor, continuing with Tom DeLay, through Karl Rove, up to the present with North Carolina and Donald Trump.
This Republican corruption is what attracts the Russians to begin with. Birds of a feather, or more aptly, bees to honey. Republicans just seem to have a knack for it. It comes to them naturally. Perfection through practice, I guess.
3
“This probably sounds, like, totally cheesy,” he said, “but I just love this country, and we’re not going to fix what’s wrong with it until we get better people there.”
Good luck, man. I hope you get there. But you're not going to fix what's wrong with this country until you get money out of politics.
2
So, we did find the voter corruption that Donald screamed about incessantly. We found it in his own party and no one is surprised.
2
This guy is far too nice to be in politics. If he wins - and I hope he does - his high hopes will be quickly dashed by the reality of the hateful nature of our politics
2
"It’s not at all clear that McCready will win, but it is clear that local Republicans, far from being abashed, will brand him a troublemaker." This quote from the article says it all about today's Republicans. God help us.
3
Republicans scream about election fraud by Democrats, but it's the Republicans who commit it. In North Korea the ballots have only one candidate. With the gerrymandering and Russians, how soon will we have those ballots? Why can't we use the word "evil" for that party?
4
There is no denying that, when it comes to politics and governance, Republicans wrote the book on lying, cheating, dissembling and corruption. They created the cesspool that could only attract slime like Donald Trump.
As Dan McCready pointed out, Republicans display no moral compass. Even after their cheating has been exposed they blame Democrats for forcing a new election. Republicans believe that legal and ethical behavior is only a suggestion. I cry for my country.
2
@DA Mann At this time, you may well be correct. However, as to who wrote the book, I give you (Democratic) Mayor Daley of Chicago or Boss Tweed of New York. At various time in the history of the country, different parties have been at the forefront of the election fraud trend.
1
Thank you, Frank. Keep up the good work- the country needs it.
2
I really want to believe that 2018 was the turning of the tide. This piece helps me in that belief. It will take constant work, but it's worth it to get to a place where we all do better when we all do better.
2
McCready shouldn’t have to run again to prove he’s the superior candidate. It’s a given. Still, if he must run, I hope the voters in NC turn out in force and deliver a resounding victory. A message needs to be sent.
5
Thank goodness for Dan McCready and for Frank Bruni keeping attention on the issue of election fraud. If Mr. McCready "loses" a second time, I hope there will be an investigation before his opponent is seated in the House. But I hope Mr. McCready wins as he deserves.
2
If those who seek our vote were honest it would be one thing, but many if not most don't let that caveat deter them in their pursuit of fortune if not fame as well.
Well defined and untouchable term limits coupled with campaign funding reform would not limit those who seek office, but the knowledge of a limit would have the effect of culling the choice as a career move.
In addition to engaging many more well meaning, well versed people to seek and hold office under such a circumstance the laws would benefit all of society rather than the select few who profit in today's political milieu.
A concurrent step eliminating the "revolving door" of business interests that influence our process is an equally important step
Disparities with regard to this most important and fragile mechanism must be eliminated or our present slide into a dictatorship may reach an unstoppable momentum.
@Ian MacFarlane
Some places have term limits, and others do not. The way to evaluate term limits is not to theorize about their effects, but rather to investigate whether the places with term limits have better governments than the places that dont. It is not obvious that they do.
Other countries do a much better job of keeping money out of politics than we do. And their governments seem to work better; in healthcare, for instance, the populations of these countries live as long as we do but pay much less for their health care. Of course, they pay more of what they pay with taxes or other government-managed payments.
@sdavidc9
And who does this investigation? And how is it not obvious?
While we all pay for healthcare, women actually pay a greater portion than men for less consideration.
I don't think it a matter of speculation as much as practice. Men rule and have for so long that among both men and women it has become as planned, an essentially unquestionable dictate.
The most straightforward way to address and solve this problem is by encouraging and assisting women to seek public office. No culture, even the most intimate, survives without a woman's input.
Women are needed and only the most obdurate sexists deny this clear fact. Reason is shared among the sexes and it is well past time for far too many men and their subdued female counterparts to recognize this truth.
1
I wish Mr. McCready luck in the do-over election.
But a little part of me hopes he loses and then chooses to run for president.
This is the kind of true patriot, with sound policies, that should be sitting in the Oval Office.
1
Thank you Frank Bruni for writing this column and helping many of us get to know Dan McCready a little bit better. Wow, what an impressive guy.
Dan McCready is the type of person that we should all want as our representative in government. He is smart, hardworking, optimistic, well educated, energetic, has a history of service to his country, and wants to bridge the divides that are so challenging. I for one am very grateful that he wants to do this.
It’s not too late to contribute financially to his campaign if you are interested and able.
2
Reading this makes one want to pack up, head to North Carolina, and give one's all to Mr. McCready, doesn't it?
2
I would like to hold up a role model for Mr. McCready. And for you. And me. And all of us.
That would be Dr. Martin Luther King.
At the time of the Birmingham church bombing.
It doesn't get lower than that, Mr. Bruni. Seriously. This is the human race at rock bottom. The persons who planted those bombs--blowing how many was it? four young girls to kingdom come--those persons I hardly regard as human beings. Some dreadful alien life form, perhaps--with the faces and bodies of human beings but the souls of reptiles.
Some young black activists were inarticulate with rage. Groping for words--giving up. I'd have done no better.
Dr. King did better.
Speaking gravely, dispassionately he expressed his own horror, his own incredulity. How can such things happen?
But his eye was always on the ball. Always! The goal (for him, for millions) was equal rights. From that goal his eye never strayed--no, not for a moment
Grief? Yes indeed! But there was PURPOSE in his grief.
I would say that to Mr. McCready. And I'm sorry--
--but this man is up against entrenched wickedness, entrenched corruption. I expect it was a shock. Embittered? Yes. I'll bet he is. Along with his family.
Let him fight again. Let him keep his eye on the ball.
Let us ALL do that. Patiently, indefatigably. Never say die. Never give up. Or shrug our shoulders--amble off.
Dr. King didn't.
He was on the march till he died.
Can we do any less?
5
As I write this, there are 73 comments to this article. Surprisingly, not one (yet) postulates a counter argument in an attempt to show that FB’s editorial is wrong, misguided or simply partisan. That’s rare for these pages; there always seems to be someone ready to jump in with something like “what-aboutism” or some other contrarian argument to try to discredit an editorial like this.
Here, thus far, it does not appear that a single comment has dared to insert a silly counter argument. Because no one can. Harris’s actions and lies — called out by his own son, no less) — are so objectively bad, and the attempt to steal this election so objectively and obviously un-American (and fraudulent, that there is no counter narrative. No partisan right wing hack will even try on these pages. That says something. It also says something about Trump and the RNC who have failed to come out squarely against this travesty and, instead, continue to advance their false claim about widespread voter fraud by illegals.
11
One voter committed ‘voter fraud’ and got 5 years. This guy doctored hundreds. He should get 5 years for each. Same for his accomplice. They should both die in prison.
7
Dan, if they steal it from you again, or you decide that the folks in your state are just not worthy of decent government, take your family out of there while you and they are still young, and find a community worthy of you.
Get out of the South.
4
It seems improbable, if not impossible, that a foreign power can influence elections in a country where billions of dollars are spent on them, where individual supporters of parties donate millions, where representative districts are reformed to one party’s advantage, where voting polls close early while citizens are still waiting to cast their ballots, where certain segments of citizens are disqualified from voting, where hackable electronic voting machines, unlike those in in Venezuela, leave no paper trail for verification, where corporations are considered people and where the candidate with the most votes can be the loser. And yet, at least one country manages to openly interfere in American democracy. And it isn’t Russia.
1
Absolutely, let us all commit to assist his campaign in November.
This American Patriot deserves it.
A small donation from millions of Americans will help a lot.
And we should all thank the son of the republican candidate who told the truth.
There is hope for America after all.
2
I worked for a consumer data company that was asked in 2000 to step in to audit the 4 counties challenged by Gore in Gore v. Bush in Florida.
They were tasked with comparing voter data with the deceased data the company had in their database. The data used was from the day the voter actually cast their vote, whether it was in person or mail in.
What was found was that over 3700 dead people had voted for Gore in those 4 counties and less that 250 dead people had voted for Bush in the same 4 counties.
Because SCOTUS ruled as they did, the DNC/RNC opted to bury this data analysis.
This fraud is real and it has real impact. We have ObamaCare today because of proven fraud in the MN Senate race that allowed D's to seat Al Franken...giving them 60 seats with which to pass ACA. In that case, it was a matter of ex-felons voting illegally as well as a very bad process for managing absentee/mail in ballots in the two largest counties. The other 90 counties followed the law..the 2 biggest counties didn't...and 8 recounts later...Franken was finally found to be the winner.
Each state should have a federal requirement to conduct a post-election audit and analysis of voting in their state. That data should be provided to the public very transparently.
I'm a big believer in Voter ID, and for those who cannot afford a Photo ID...they need to vote in person where a digital camera will capture your smiling face and attach that small JPG file to your voting record.
That's how it's done.
2
Ms Smythe,
Voter ID would not address the fraud committed in this case. While we are at it, how about making states that pass voter ID laws pay to get the voters their ID? You know, pay for the time they have to take off work to get it, the cost of taking pics and making cards.
2
I am crying. Real tears. We need people like this so much! My spirit is crushed a bit more everyday by what is going on in this country. And the largest part is not that there are are dispicable people in government like Harris, it is that so many regular people vote R without regard for what they are actually voting for!
5
Two thoughts:
1) Wish I could vote for Dan McCready
2) What happened to Republicans? Is there no end to the cravenness and corruption?
6
Where even to begin?? The number of proven instances of voter fraud (ie, someone actually casting a vote, who is not entitled to do so) in the USA is VANISHINGLY small - probably less than 1 in a BILLION votes cast - and this is despite insanely vigorous effords by Rebublicans, to substantiate this myth using tax payers' money. Yet, like all right-wingnut myths it persists. Trump's lying rants and raves about this non-existent problem should disqualify him from being a public notary, let alone the "leader of the free world": he has brazenly made vast, sweeping claims that don't have a SHRED of evidence to back them up - this is out and out lying, and in an elected official, lying to the public should be completely illegal... but for some reason it isn't. It seems that TRUE democracy, despite Lenard Cohen's optimistic poetry, won't be coming to the USA any time soon.
3
Even Mark Harris' son considers his Evangelical dad a cheater. That says it all.
5
A Republican winning by election fraud. Oh, the irony!
4
So Mr. McCready discovered that Republicans steal, lie and cheat. His opponent an "evangelical minister" had his own son implicate him in the voter scam. This pretty well sums up the party of trump as they all play follow the leader. We deserve better than this.
6
Dan McCready is the real deal and should be an inspiration to all Americans. Unfortunately, the culture of cheating and shortcuts and outright lying still infects the Republicans.
In fact, that culture is much worse because of the dishonest gift received by Donald Trump from his highly partisan, bought-and-paid-for Attorney General, Willian Barr.
We all had the double shock of learning in 2016 that Donald Trump had won and learning in 2017 that a Trump presidency was even worse than we expected.
This week, we had the double shock of learning that Robert Mueller expected Congress to address the issues of obstruction of justice and collusion and then learning that William Barr deliberately mischaracterized Mueller’s report as exculpatory of Trump.
Dan McCready may be cheated out of the electoral win he deserves, but he will not disappear.
3
Wow, a man of principle. Softens my ever growing skepticism.
2
Why, oh why, is Mr. McCready forced to again campaign and run for the office he clearly won when only honest votes are counted? He should be seated in Congress now. What a sham.
7
The republicans are in control and can call for a new election with the weight of the national party engine behind them in order to defeat an honest man. The truth is no longer a republican standard, but innuendo and threats are. Semper Fi, Marine!
3
No longer can we be polite with the "Republicans and Democrats want the same thing, but to get there differently."
Or: "There are bad apples on both sides."
It is perfectly clear now that today's Republican party is corrupt.
And those Rep. who are not actually committing corrupt acts themselves are complicit in all the other corruption by not standing up to it.
2
why should there be a new election?
this punishes the innocent candidate and gives the other side another crack at a seat they should be denied due to their dishonesty.
talk about an incentive to cheat! - If we’re caught we’ll get another try.
What a sick joke.
1
This was a really nice article. I have to comment that it took a son to tell the truth about his preacher dad to sway the jury. But what that says is that it took a so called rat to clear the air. And what that says is that more Americans need to be more ratish if we are going to save our democracy. Meaning there are thousands of people every day who see corruption and they need to drop the dime. Democracy only works if people in it are honorable. We know that most are some what honest but just a few dishonest in the wright place can create havoc. We need to drop more dimes!!
103
I consider myself a cynic—but I am with McCready. I have been shocked again and again by Republicans nakedly placing money and power over country and the acceptance of it by Democrats. Plenty of Americans are like me. Whether the issue is health care or global warming, We need a party willing to shake our moral compass.
5
Isn't this same "fraud" perpetrated in North Carolina completely LEGAL in California? which voted for Secretary Clinton by 4 million vote margin? If so, is it not just a wee bit cynical to be horrified by the North Carolina manipulation of a few hundred absentee ballots?
2
@John J. Tkacik - Yes, and my guess is that Hillary's margin of victory in California was actually 5.5 million votes. The Republicans tried, but just couldn't find enough unethical workers to get more Republican votes there!
2
@John J. Tkacik I think you need to read more into this, friend. This was a clear instance of premeditated voter fraud, not some clerical procedure. The Republican candidate hired a man to collect absentee ballots, that man then altered them to cast a vote for the Republican, and then submitted those ballots fraudulently.
4
@John J. Tkacik
Huh?? What are you talking about. The 4 million margin was from legitimate voters - not even a tiny bit of evidence of fraud.
3
For a long time I have been very troubled by the notion that someone labeled as an "American Patriot" is somehow automatically assumed to be a conservative
republican with with right-leaning politics --
I'm a liberal democrat -
I love my country and care about what happens to it - now, and in the future --
I vote - every opportunity I get --
And --
I'm an American Patriot --
I refreshing to see Frank Bruni refer to Dan McCready as a Patriot --
Please introduce us to a few more...
686
@Howard G
Amen, Howard. I’m beyond tired of these conmen claiming the mantle. I’m a very proud Veteran, from a Family of Veterans. And a lifelong Democrat. The difference : compassion and community. We have it, they don’t.
135
@Howard G
??
I'm confused. For a couple years now it's been completely clear conservative republicans are NOT patriots. They have been working overtime, extra hard to prove that. The very LAST person I would entrust our republic to is a "conservative republican". They are aiding an abetting a criminal; an illegitimate, an usurper. They are co-conspirators. Their allegiances are elsewhere. Their reputations are forever sullied and damaged beyond repair.
Did I get any of that wrong?
47
@Phyliss Dalmatian
Phyliss, thank you for your service.
19
"one of the most egregious instances of federal election fraud in anyone’s memory."
He was finally caught! It's been going on for decades, but for the first time, he was caught. This is the turning of the tide. The RNC chose Charlotte for 2020, ha. They are in for a surprise. Trump Baby Blimp!
Nobody's surprised it was a minister who cheated. He turned his back on God. He was lured by power and money. Of course he cheated and then lied under oath about cheating. So common, these days.
4
Time and time again we see Republicans officials and representatives cheating, playing dirty, lying, manipulating, engaging in voter fraud and gerrymandering.
Why? They know it's the only way they can win. But they do it because liberals and democrats are too nice and because they know there are few repercussions. Remember Al Gore being so nice about Florida?
I think it's time for liberals and democrats to stop playing nice. Call out the liars and cheaters for who they are. Most voters doesn't really know or understand how electoral fraud works and they need to be told and the perpetrators need to be attacked as they are stealing democracy at every election.
9
"A starry-eyed novice"?
No, a voluntary participant in George W. Bush's Iraq War, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the country.
The last thing this country needs is another cheerleader for undeclared, unaffordable, indefensible and unending war.
Tellingly, the candidate Mr. McCready defeated in the Democratic primary, Christian Cano - who was the Party's nominee in 2016 - endorsed the Libertarian candidate in NC09, Jeff Scott, rather than Mr. McCready.
2
This is not about Dowless or McCready anymore.
This is about the voters in that district and whether they have any honor. It's about whether they are as corrupt and soluless as the Republican crooks they have supported and accepted for decades.
The odds favor corruption.
3
@Bob Woods - I do not believe these voters are corrupt and soulless. I believe they are misinformed and lazy. They only hear one side of the issues and don't bother to read anything the other side is saying - even though that is very hard to do.
The first thing every voter should realize is that a candidate, any candidate, (of ANY party) who is running a smear campaign is doing so because that candidate cannot win on platform, knowledge and experience. NEVER vote for anyone who runs a smear campaign.
Thank you Frank. I needed that.
2
This isn't really about McCready. This is about a Republican party that will do absolutely anything to win. They are the type of people who will play a friendly little game of chess with you. While you are in the kitchen fixing up a little snack to enjoy, the opponent is moving the pieces on the chessboard to make it easier to win. And they will sit there and lie to your face when you say "Did the board look like this when I went in to the kitchen?" If Harris' son had not honestly testified, Harris would be sitting in Congress today, acting saintly. And demanding the McCready camp apologize for even considering Harris was corrupt. Because Republicans are all holier than thou. The Bible to them is a prop. They have a following that doesn't mind that one bit. The 10 commandments to them are , more or less, guidelines. Never really meant to be followed to the letter.
8
Mark Harris, revealed by his son to have hired a crook to help him steal an election, concealed incriminating emails, and lied under oath, was a preacher as well as a politician. What does this tell us about preachers? We know what it tells us about Mark Harris.
2
Godspeed, Dan McCready !
Frank tells us:
"And he remained so as he learned more about what investigators were looking into and how long it had been ignored."
One of the things that's occurring in our social media connected world is that past nefariousness gets harder to hide. Combined with the fact that people can connect and donate in small amounts to support their candidates, the political framework which has enabled/covered up nefariousness can't cope.
What's being exposed in our politics are the same animal spirits devotees, 'with zero moral compass' in McCready's words, who caused the '08 melt-down then expected Jane/Joe Sixpack to fund their bonusus - on top of having funded their payroll:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15AIG.html
McCready is correct:
"But when one side behaves despicably, he asked, how do you not call it and them out as passionately as you can?"
To not call out - loudly - such behavior is to give it a pass; and McCready well knows exactly how the other side would be acting if roles were reversed, and they found themselves in our shoes.
“This is why voters think all politicians are a bunch of crooks." Except clearly one party has more crooks and outright criminals and Russian allies than the other.
Make no mistake. Had the former Republican governor of NC, Pat McCrory, not lost to our current Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, in 2016, Republicans would have successfully stolen this election in the 9th district of NC too.
Republicans are great at stealing and misrepresenting their opponents narrative and falsely accuse them of crimes to divert from the fact that they are the ones actually committing those crimes - divert, divide and defame. YES, the elections are rigged - by Republicans. At least 55 years of rigged elections in the 9th district of NC - unless Republicans can prove otherwise. Typical immoral GOP response to getting caught stealing yet another election? Calling Democrats troublemakers.
Trump, like Republicans accuse Democrats of being sore losers after the Republicans successfully steal an election - Large national election or small district election, same response.
Not surprisingly, yet another right-wing zero moral compass man of God thinks he can pull one over on God. Really! Oh, and disrespects a veteran just like our current commander in chief does.
How do you work with both sides when one side seeks to stab you in the back? Why is Harris not in jail and barred from holding any public office for life? We need a disgraced political fraudster registry like we do for sex offenders.
5
Mr Bruni, thank you for all of your excellent writing. I read your Op-Eds every week, and I’m consistently impressed with your mastery of our language and how your well-calibrated moral compass shines through in the stories you tell. Please keep doing what you do... you are so good.
4
Why hasn’t Mark Harris been charged with perjury and obstruction, among other possible crimes? An ‘evangelical preacher’ should certainly know right from wrong.
3
Politics has always been a nasty business, a "blood sport" where thuggish behavior frequently paid off. Decades ago there were Democratic "Machines" in big cities that were as crooked as the Mafia. But today the evil is virtually all on one side, the Republican side. Look at who is responsible for election fraud, making it difficult for people of color to vote etc. Democrats need to learn how to message this, as powerfully as Trump messages his lies.
Tell me again why do we really really need Congress
@CathyK
Now that the senate has surrendered the power of the purse, uh... I guess it's good for the economy that they're taking lobbyist money and adding it to their untaxable wealth? Or maybe it has something to do with the political theatrics that barely maintain faith in our facsimile of democracy? Or maybe there's a demand for photos of McConnell that I don't understand (Rule 34)?
Kind of at a loss for an answer to your question.
Yawn.
Let's handle election fraud after we finish investigating the Russia Collusion fraud, and jailing the people responsible for pushing it.
1
The bright eyed idealism—of the author, overlooks the far more egregious “interstate cross check” scheme. Luckily, there are reporters out there who actually go after the big fish.
They aren’t just reporting republican election fraud, but victoriously suing them to uncover their shameful shenanigans.
https://www.gregpalast.com/illinois-drops-interstate-crosscheck-purge-program-but-our-suit-continues/
1
" '....It's like zero moral compass--literally zero. I didn't expect that.' "
What an apt description of the contemporary Republican party.
1
Mr. Smith went to Washington and found out what Dan McCready just found out. It's a snake pit. Let's hope he doesn't need to go through what Jefferson Smith did to do some good for the country.
This is what makes & keeps America great, not wearing MAGA hats. More power to to McCready and our veterans - I really hope he wins
Yet another reminder that the Grand Old Phonies —- between election fraud, gerrymandering, voter file purges, voter suppression laws, black-box vote counting, and 0.1% $peech —- have completely abandoned democracy, representative government and the interests of the American people.
There’s nothing patriotic about the Republican Party.... except for wiping them off the face of the American political map.
5
The finest minds in America think the American republic is finished. I can’t think of a single intellectual of any stature who disagrees. William Barr is nothing more, and nothing less, than a traitor; McConnell long ago proved himself to be one; and one has to be wondering about the esteemed Mr. Mueller. A couple of titles tell a story:
“It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America”
by David Cay Johnston
“It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism”
by Norman Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann
“The Suffocation of Democracy“
by Christopher Browning
“The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America”
by Timothy Snyder
These are to be read on a desert island, when it’s all over.
Its nice to know there appears to be at least one honorable person in politics. As Mueller repairs to his nicely appointed home in Georgetown, no doubt congratulated by his insider buddies for a "job well done", as the "generals" who served Trump until fired by him remain silent, as "journalists" continue to blather, maybe McCready and a few others can redeem our dying country.
No Republican evil is greater than its effort to deny Americans the right to vote. Controlling the electorate enables the party to pursue its myriad of other objectionable policies on race, sex, religion, climate and immigration. The Times must search out and publicize these tactics on a regular basis.
1
Republicans engaging in all manner of voting manipulations, as described here and elsewhere, are indicating clearly that their own people cannot win fairly and squarely. Without gerrymandered districts and 24/7 hate-filled innuendo on schlock-talk radio, they will land on the trash heap of history.
1
So what?
Because he is white man he is supposed to be treated more equal and fair than if he were black?
Until enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 black African Americans in the South were regularly and routinely denied their right to vote by any and all means necessary including color aka race ethnic cleansing terrorist lynchings.
Black men, women and children paid with their blood, sweat and tears for their right to vote. Culminating in the Selma Alabama civil rights campaign that went from the vicious police riot at the Edmumd Pettus Bridge to the deaths of a black man from the South Jimmie Lee Jackson and two righteous white people from the North James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo.
Leading to a legendary nation wide televised address to a joint session of Congress by President Lyndon Baines Johnson that ended with LBJ saying " We shall overcome".
Then came the Supreme Court of the United States opinion in Shelby County v. Holder which eviscerated the pre-clearance requirements of the Voting Rights Act.
Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the court in an unexpected and unsolicited activist step substituted his opinion in place of bipartisan findings to the contrary that color aka race bigotry and discrimination in voting rights was a thing of the past.
Congress did not act to reverse Shelby County. And States misled from the heart of the Confederacy have taken steps to deny,discourage, discriminate and suppress the black African American vote.
1
"It can be low-tech: going door to door to round up and forge absentee ballots in a candidate’s favor." And how do you think the Dems flipped 5 Congressional seats in CA where ballot harvesting is legal? Also, election fraud can take the shape of Maryland's 3rd Congressional district which was clearly intended to disenfranchise independents and GOP in central Maryland. Take a look at this seagull splat of a district and tell me this isn't liberal politics at its worst.
https://marylandreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/3rd-district-2.jpg
1
Of course, the behavior that affected McCready is far beyond the pail of normal voter obstruction that has become the bread and butter of GOP insider politics.
Once you begin to rationalize, there is a slippery slope you may find yourself falling into. The original lie the GOP members tell themselves is that people not willing to go to a certain amount of trouble to vote shouldn't be allowed to.
This is the kind of idiotic rationalization that gets these people through the night. What keeps me up is that the human mind is so capable of justifying almost anything.
Thank you Frank for publicizing this story. One consequence of the shameful Republican voter disenfranchisement program is that Dan McCready needs to mount another election campaign. This costs money. If you are inclined to support him, please consider making a donation:
https://www.danmccready.com
A donation won't change all that is wrong with the world, but it is a chance for all of us who are able to push back at the cynical Republican corruption threatening our national values.
Perhaps Republicans are monarchists at heart.
The divine right of kings must not be perverted by something as vulgar as fair and free elections.
1
Good luck, Mr. McCready!
1
Mr McCready knows what the GOP has long forgotten:
“This is our most sacred right in America — to vote,” he said. “It’s a right that people have fought and died for.” To have it corrupted like this was wrong.
Because when it comes down to it, in his own twisted way, Trump has it right, illegals are destroying the election process in our country - illegal Republicans.
1
We can hope McCready wins and "Mr. Smith goes to Washington".
71
@trebor
Since Harris and his Republican party CHEATED, the election should go to McCready.
No NEW election with NEW Republicans who will also cheat.
McCready deserves to win. CHEATERS AKA Republicans don't.
8
I live in NC#09. When I moved here in the early 2000s I was appalled at the blatant corruption in the politics here. Good ole boys protecting good ole boys.
The attempt of the Harris campaign to hijack the election is just one example. Even now good ole boys (including one currently running for the empty seat in Congress) are still are saying that no one told the Harris campaign that Dowless was a bad actor.
This lie is still being perpetuated even though Harris’s own son testified that he had warned his father. It’s in the court records.
What is even more amazing to me is that many voters in NC#09 will still go ahead and vote for these blatant liars.
I hope McCready wins. Union County needs a breath of fresh air. He will have to go out in the trenches, knocking on doors, one by one, in order to do so.
100
@KLKemp, the King of Union County conservatives was none other than Jesse Helms! For those not steeped in NC history Jesse and his backers would say or do anything to win. They played the race card against Harvey Gantt and claimed late one Friday that they had irrefutable proof that Jim Hunt had a gay affair while in college. The following Monday afternoon a press release said they had been wrong and had asked Jesus to forgive them and they knew Jim would also forgive them. The bottom line for NC Republicans is to win--hook or crook! The 9th District is just further proof.
13
@EDH: Jesse Helms is cooking right alongside Strom Thurmond in a place no one wants to go after they die. Can't wait for Hair Furor and McCONnell to join them.
4
Dan McCready ran in our district and I voted for him. Harris beat Pittinger in sketch circumstances to run against McCready but the GOP told Pittinger to pipe down. Which he did but he knows exactly what happened.
Now one of those running against McCready is Bishop who is in the thick of a smear campaign already. Dan Bishop is ALEC's lapdog and a major author of NC's awful bathroom bill. BTW - the bathroom part was the least venomous part of the bill. Let's not get started on voter suppression in NC. Awful.
77
@Michelle Teas: Condolences.
I am flummoxed by the notion that McCready has to face a new election against a fresh opponent after the last one was stolen. I thought NC law was that the old election had to be rerun. (That in itself is beyond belief. Thieves have to return stolen property. Does anyone argue that a stolen election is less valuable than a stolen TV?) If Harris isn't feeling like running again, then he can concede.
I guess NC has to be added to the list of states that can't be trusted to manage an election (headed, of course, by FL and OH). Sad!
18
Dan McCready has an unbelievable resume and qualifications.
Please, if you can, help. Do something positive you can be proud of and encourage others to do so.
https://www.danmccready.com/
1
The Patriots guide to election fraud is simple:
1) Secretly tape the other teams' practices.
2) Deflate your balls.
3) Have your 77 year old multi-billionaire owner arrested for soliciting sex at a strip-mall known to engage in human trafficking.
1
The Democrats nominate a candidate with an unblemished record who puts "country before party."
The Republicans nominate a candidate who puts winning at any cost, legal or illegal, before all else.
Is there a question here about which side really won - on all levels?
7
The "d0-over" is a screw-over. In sports, a winner who cheats is stripped of the medal, and everyone else moves up a notch. That is exactly what should have happened in North Carolina. Instead, the cheating party is now branding McCready as the "trouble maker" who's caused the re-vote. The Republicans, as a party, ought to have been barred from competing.
10
While admittedly hyperbolic, I have been known to argue that if you want to know what Republicans have done, are doing or plan to do that is illegal, unethical or immoral just pay attention to what they are most loudly accusing Democrats of doing.
This story is a case in point.
Republicans complained loudly about voter fraud. No need to ask who, tacitly or overtly, they blamed for the problem.
The President appointed a commission to uncover the evidence, but the commission, led by Pence and Korbach, found a “nothing burger.”
As if this story is not bad enough, North Carolina is also a home of the kind of gerrymandering that is now under review by the Supreme Court. This naked effort to suppress voting by people who tend to support Democrats is being justified by Republicans as their constitutional right.
6
My illusions on politics broke when I was 18 and all gung-ho volunteering for our local star mayoral progressive candidate, who branded himself as the most honest Abe of all.
Then his campaign manager asked me to phone a newspaper to spill dirt on the opponent while praising our candidate. I was to pretend I was an undecided voter, and I cringed as my words stretched credulity. To my everlasting regret, my crooked words ended up in the paper. Luckily my candidate lost anyway.
It would be many years before I again helped a campaign. When I did, my eyes were wide open to the dirty tricks which I believe happens on all sides though I vowed I would never cross that line again. But that, folks, in my mind at least, is politics.
2
I live in NC District 10, the heavily gerrymandered district to the west of Dan McCready. Extreme gerrymandering and repeated attempts to thwart voter turnout has tainted democracy in this state and the state GOP is shameless in their quest for power. In the upcoming special election, I hope that Dan McCready prevails over the illegal and immoral actions taken by his opponents and helps us regain trust in our democracy and politics again.
79
President Obama was completely naive to think the GOP would work with ihm during one of our country's most severe financial crisis in history. They not only declined to help our country, they actively obstructed his efforts to help our country.
That is all you need to know about the GOP. They are actively working to destroy democracy and install their party permanently in power.
7
The Left never examines its own crimes. The Right does, and strives to fix them. That is a good thing.
1
@skyfiber
Your comment made me laugh so hard I spilled my coffee!
1
This piece points up the dilemma for a lot of us.
How do you compete, politically, when the other side doesn't play by any of the rules, doesn't respect any established norms, and truly believes the ends justifies the means?
Do you stay on the high road, stand your moral ground, stick to your ideals...and LOSE?
Or do you chuck it all out and become yet another unprincipled politico?
I look to history---at least US history----and see no real precedent for this.
@Trobo
I believe the answer is not to go low but to shine the light on any and all corruption. Back up your findings with solid proof. Then the hardest part comes, opening the eyes of those who have become blinded by half truths and downright lies.
The Republican party is not the same party that elected Reagan and Bush Sr., neither of whom would make it through their party's primaries today. This is why so many of the more moderate Republican's have left the party. Extremists have taken over the party The same is happening to the Democrats, just at a slower pace. The list of unhappy Republicans and Democrats now declaring themselves Independents is growing day by day.
What is needed is a campaign aimed at those who exclusively watch the unjustified and venomous Fox commentators like Hannity and think everything comes out of their mouth is the truth. There are those at Fox News that are more level headed, like Chris Wallace, and we should support the true news men and women like him.
The Republican Party as it stands now is for the most part corrupt because of Trump and his slavish supporters who can't hear what anyone else says because of their constant shouting or the clamping of hands over their ears if anyone tries to get them to listen. Again, the Far Left Democrats are starting to follow the same path.
We more moderate Americans need to take back our respected parties from these extremists or we face the prospect of a very violent, extremist fired civil war.
The republican party is using North Carolina as a laboratory for the testing of new frontiers in underhanded dirty double dealing in order to foist a bankrupt ideology on voters. Mr. McCready is just sort of sunshine that is needed. As to his previous opponent, he just got himself a whole lot of red ink in the book of deeds.
“- country over party - exhorted Americans to rise above precisely the kind of vicious partisanship that infected his race.”
I can’t think of a single GOP politician, from the president on down, who puts the health, happiness and general well-being of this country and its citizens ahead of their own selfish electoral concerns and those of their corporate sponsors. NOT ONE!
If the only way the Republicans can be elected ( besides electoral fraud and gerrymandering) is on a platform of the exclusionary politics of misogyny i.e. limiting women’s reproductive rights, racism, xenophobia, ubiquitous “in your face” religion in the public sphere, and unlimited gun-ownership they’ll embrace them without hesitation.
We’d better hope that despite everything, Dan McCready continues to fight for all this nation’s citizens and not just a select few.
1
@Susan There are Republicans who've stood up to Trump and his followers ...... and been taken down or ignored.
Those are the politicians who need the support of the former Republicans who've now declared themselves Independents.
Nothing will improve until the Republican Party is taken back by the more moderate members who've left from disgust.
The propaganda from the Right is so loud, my ears are blown out. Only a mindless culture, cultivated to obey, allows for such manipulation without question.
2
I hope that all the folks who write here in support of McCready will extend that support to finances; you can bet that the GOP is going to spend a large fortune to demonize and swamp him. Every dollar counts, so let's not leave him hanging. And every election--regular and special, state and federal--is important to improving the quality of government.
2
A republican candidate devises a scheme to steal ballots, not just votes, undermining the rights of those voters to be represented, and Republicans say the Democrats are "Forcing a new election," and also alluding to, "an epidemic of illegal voting by undocumented immigrants. "
You could not find evidence of more dishonest people if you tried, this could not be made up, it is indicative of the GOP, and its swindler leader, whose name I just can not bring myself to pronounce or even write.
It also should bring one to ponder how 40% or two out of five of your neighbors could be so enamored of such people. Do you consider them trustworthy, do you willingly do business those who are infatuated with such people?
You do not see or hear any Republicans denouncing this.
This is unscrupulous on a grand scale, it is indicative of the current state of today's Republican party, a shameful and disgusting end to a once proud tradition.
4
In my humble opinion, we have crossed the Rubicon with the Trump administration - voter fraud, corruption, lies, gerrymandering, propaganda - all with the tacit approval of the Republican Party who see their interests being advanced by this abomination.
We have what I believe to be an illegally elected president - with Trump's passive if not active cooperation with the Russians - who complains about voter fraud and establishes bogus voter fraud commissions that collapse under their own weight.
Nixon - Watergate - was a watershed moment for the country and for the Republican Party that rose to the occasion: "People have got to know that I'm not a crook..." Well, Nixon was a crook and corrective action was taken with the help of the Republicans.
With the political-hack appointment of Barr, and the ambivalent Mueller investigation report, Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall. Let's see if some of the King's men - not the Haldemans and Erlichmans who are running the country now - can rise to this occasion and put America back together again.
I don't think the system worked. On this account McCready won the election, and should be in Congress. Republicans, still corrupt, have awarded themselves an illegitimate do-over.
5
Thank you so much Frank Bruni for writing about an American who is a man like those the world believed in back after WW2. That they still exist is remarkable considering the vulgarity that now seems to be the normal in the USA.
1
Great ad for McCready, but one wonders how many voters in the precincts in question read the NYT. He sounds like a good guy, and hopefully learned something about economics in college whereas AOC didn't.
When I learned about the ballot harvesting issue I was surprised, given that it's legal in California, probably with the same distortions as in NC.
Bruni's characterization of Harris as "disgraced and reeling" is a bit unfair; the man suffered two strokes in February.
2
Why wouldn’t it be just to declare McCready the winner as he would have won but for the GOP fraud? Holding another election rewards the GOP for bad behavior.
1
Having a do-over election is pure nonsense. The republican candidate has dropped out for health reasons? Or spend more time with the family?
Regardless, the original GOP candidate by hiring a known 'dirty trick's operative,' that fraudulently altered or otherwise tampered with absentee ballots, and then drops out of the special election should lose by default.
It seems that the original candidate having quit most likely to avoid further legal scrutiny has forfeited the election to the Democrat. No further burden should be placed on the voters of that district to suffer another round of negative TV, Radio, and Print advertising wars for another primary and general midterm do-over election.
The district also suffers the lack of a congressional representative in the House.
This matter should not give republicans a second bite of the apple.
2
How sad that so many people in that NC district have so little self-respect and so little ability to think for themselves that they can't rise up in righteous indignation and vote for this very decent fellow, even now after the shameless dishonesty of the North Carolina Republican machine has been exposed for anyone with eyeballs to see.
Can nothing break the spell?
As a lefty Democrat reading between the lines, I don't think Mr. McCready would normally be my ideal candidate; but then, I don't live in a purple leaning to red state like NC (though many might be surprised by how red my part of NY is, once you get twenty minutes out of the city).
But this story has a moral for Dems who demand ideological purity. We can ill afford to overlook McCready's admirable integrity.
Over decades, I've watched the Democratic Party lose its boldness and be guided instead by which way the political winds appear to be blowing. For the first time in years, I see the regeneration of the Dems as a big tent party, with room for idealists like AOC and pragmatists like Dan McCready, equally passionate in wanting to do good our national and international society - which in itself is in stark contrast to the GOP's misanthropy.
00:20 EDT, 3/27
5
The "Southern Strategy" since the 14th and 15th amendments. So.....what's new. It'a highly infectious and effective.
1
Stranger even than Republicans' plain desire to throw democracy into the sewer are the Democrats who can't seem to fathom what they're up against. How much more evidence do they need? Did they somehow miss the entire Obama presidency?
1
Why is Harris not in prison? So you can pay a criminal to throw an election, effectively transforming American democracy into tyranny, lie about it under sworn oath in court, be outed by your own son with evidence of hiding evidence from investigators, and then walk Scott free?! How is this man still walking around the streets and not in an orange jumpsuit for crimes against the Republic and our people? This is why Americans don't believe in government anymore.
7
Your sharing about Mr. Dan McCready, his words, actions, ideals and his wired-DNA- personal accountability is most welcome. Thank you. Much needed during these dark days, in a country of diverse people; many choosing to behave in an ummenschlich-manner. Many choosing to be complacent about… or complicit in… a toxic WE-THEY culture which violates, by harmful words and deeds. Selected, targeted and disempowered, dehumanized “ the other.” Values. Norms. Ethics.Daily! Enabling uncivility. Damaging mutual trust. Mutual respect. Choosing to be willfully blind, deaf, ignorant and silent about what exists, which never should!
You note, often, “He/he…” Consider, having left out, that HE represents “personal accountability!” Whatever the election outcome. And that his fellow voting age, voting opportunity, voting obligation/responsibility, and hard-earned right- constituency, are now challenged by the choice: to BE personally accountability. To behave in personally accountable ways! Daily. Or NOT. And if NOT, to personally experience the outcomes; temporary or more permanent ones.
“…we’re not going to fix what’s wrong with it until we get better people there.” And that wont happen when “accountability” is just a word!
2
It is shocking that they behave like this regarding elections. It's also horrifying that they behave like this towards health care policy. I know there are Democrats who use similar tactics, but it doesn't seem so systemic.
To try to understand why people do these things goes nowhere. It's like discovering your current partner or coworker is a sociopath. You'll keep trying to rationalize and understand their behavior within the rules of normative social behavior, which leads to confusion and blaming yourself. It doesn't work. You simply have to accept that they are wired differently and have different rules than normal humans, then defeat them by distancing yourself, exposing them or prosecuting them.
I'm so moved by this guy's patriotism that I want to go to North Carolina and help pack up him and his wife and four kids and two dogs and move them to Washington to Drain the Swamp...or maybe he needs to stay home and clean NC up first! This is an egregious tale, and I fear it's only one of many throughout our country. We need to demand a "party blind" house cleaning!
1
"But he has learned that on top of that, “They cheat to steal votes. And now they’re sending emails attacking Democrats, saying Democrats forced a new election"
It's not enough that they cheat, then they blame the victim .
The hypocrisy of this is mind blowing.
2
Mr. McCready did not expect the lack of a moral compass on the part of republicans cheating to rig elections.
"Republicans in North Carolina and in Washington were either silent or accusatory, saying that Democrats were sore losers trying to overturn an election they’d narrowly “lost”...
It sounds like a conspiracy to me.
Unless the citizens of this country, and law enforcement, takes it seriously we will drive honest people like Mr. McCready, out of government and create a "Moscow East" where Washington D.C. used to be.
the Supreme Court needs to do it's part to stop all politicians from stealing elections.
1
"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Corrupt politicians are not new. Election fraud is not new. Democrats and Republicans have some sordid history. But as Dan McCready found out, something fundamental has changed. And it IS one-sided. Very one-sided.
“I didn’t realize how bad it was.”
The GOP doesn't even bother to pay lip service to fair elections. Beyond shameless. Cheating is all but a campaign promise, a fundraising tactic.
From Trump's sham investigation into illegal voting -- How dare 2.9 million more citizens vote for Hillary than me! ...
To purging voter rolls of names that suspiciously sound like minorities -- All those unfair voter registration drives are signing up the "wrong" people! ...
To McConnell's view that any election reform is a Democractic power grab -- The absurd notion of allowing every citizen to vote should be called the Democractic Protection Act! ...
To the howling in North Carolina about troublemakers -- How dare Democrats protest an election we rightfully stole!
The GOP just does not believe in an inclusive Democracy. Even more alarming many of their supporters are fine with that.
Yes Mr. McCready, it's bad. Real bad.
2
I don't want to sound mean, but he deserves to lose. Dan McCready thinks he do bipartisanship? really? did you forget 8 years during Obama admin?
Yes. Godspeed, Mr. McCready. And good luck.
2
I can not, for the life of me, understand why a new election is being called. Harris cheated, he withdrew, McCready wins. Shouldn't that be the way it goes? Why are they allowing Republicans a second chance to steal this seat?
191
@myasara - I absolutely agree that McCready won the election and should be allowed to take the seat. Why has that not happened? It is the only ethical response to this blatant attempt to steal the election.
25
@myasara To agree with you is easy but to answer your question...Local citizens have to be willing to spend an extra effort to unearth the truth. I am a vet too. But reality is think.."The Golden rule...he who has the gold rules."
7
@myasara
Because this is what republicans do. This is what they are and this is what we have allowed.
19
Republicans constantly raise the issue of voter fraud and have never produced evidence of actually voter fraud happening. Having worked in Florida politics for many years, working for both Republican and Democratic candidates, I watched many practices that would have been considered questionable. The most of those practices dealt with destroying or stealing yard signs or spreading rumors about a candidate. Returning to my home county in North Georgia I have seen actual voter fraud practiced in Fannin County by the Republican Party and their candidates. What happened In North Carolina is a carbon copy of what is happening by the Republicans in North Georgia. Will voter fraud ever be eliminated? Not as long as the Republican party continues to support the belief that their illegal activities to have candidates elected justifies the illegal activities that they used to get the candidate elected to enact their agenda. The end justifies the means is their motto. Vote them out at the polls and be aware that your vote may not be counted or will be changed to support the candidate you voted against when voting absentee.
2
Thank you Frank for keeping a shining light on Mr. McCready and the ongoings in N. Carolina's 9th district. I believe that in addition to his own efforts, had national news not properly covered this story, a new election would not have been ordered.
The tragedy unfolding here isn't the revelations of election fraud or gerrymandering, it is the fact that Republicans are all fine with that.
Additionally, your fostering of a good person who know doubt has a love for country and would make a fine Congressman, is appreciated. And as others have already noted, feel free to introduce us to more persons like Mr. McCready.
I am hopeful that Opinions such as this provide Mr. McCready
to garner financial support from small donors nationwide as he now has to run for re-election so to speak. No doubt, the GOP will throw everything they can at the N.C. 9th district open seat given that they were granted a re-do.
And I wish Mr. McCready and his family strength as they now have to go through this all over again.
8
The 9/11 trope is played out. Perhaps we would have done better to think about what really happened rather than lash out and then invade another country for 20 years. Joining the service post 9/11 was a reactionary move fueled by revenge not patriotism.
1
@Jts- I really don't know what this has to do with the article and both you and I are not inside the mind of Mr. McCready as to exactly what his honest motivations were to enlist, just as many people have reasons they did not enlist. Now, for a more important issue, what is your opinion about him memorizing the Gettysburg Address?
10
Gerrymandering, the electoral college, voter suppression, and Trump styled fear mongering are the GOP’s only hope in presidential elections. They haven’t won the popular vote in decades.
34
@Wordy
been working brilliantly for them, hasn't it? almost seems like those are all features of democracy, not bugs.
1
@Mogwai They are features of corruption, evil, greed and antiquated systems long in need of overhaul.
1
Frank has identified substantial causes of widespread voter apathy and a systemic deflation of the people's will to participate in the process at ground level and within hamlets across the great democracy. That is among reasons why such fraud continues to exist in plain sight. Is our fourth estate's growing focus on transient, scandal worthy 'click bait', then quickly moving on to the next shiny thing diminishing its impact on holding public officials accountable? The bottom line does have to be served, but why can't they do both? Consider the voluminous amount of free time granted to President Trump and his submissive staff, as they bawled about their concept of "voter fraud" at the voting booth. Who truly holds such people accountable? The fact is, our Democracy as a whole, is only as sound and representative of the people as the sum of its parts. Republican and Presidential candidates, the DNC and RNC do not help either, when they, by their narrowly focused voter outreach, continually help to perpetuate the red state blue state phenomena. Here is an assignment: The media must drill down to test how deeply red or blue such hamlets really are, rather than just grandly and superficially lamenting that they are, when election season comes around.
12
@Quilp- Yes. Exactly. Why can't they do both!?
What's wrong with this country is the Republican Party.
It cheats, lies, breaks laws, ignores laws.
It demonizes the opposition, constantly railing to its base that they are trying to undermine their "rights."
It threatens media outlets that report the news, and lionizes those outlets that propagandize on their behalf.
It is stacking the courts with judges that have been trained to rule in favor of their donor's interests.
Whenever the Republican Party accuses the opposition of doing something wrong, you can be certain that they are the ones doing it.
In order to save American democracy, to give the country a chance to heal and unite, It is incumbent upon the electorate to vote out every Republican in office at any level.
Nothing less will do.
November 2020.
61
@Richard So close. But you forgot the other half. Democrats. Super Delegates? Hillary Clinton and the DNC colluding to rig the 2016 Democratic Primary. The NYCBE illegally removing Democratic voters from voter rolls. DCCC requiring that political consultants can not contract with Democrats trying to primary other Democrats. No Richard, you do us no service by failing to be honest and include the other half of our corrupt election system. What good is voting out every Republican only to have them replaced by corporate friendly Democrats who will vote against the best economic interests of their constituents in favor of the economic interests of their corporate and oligarchic donors?
15
@FXQ
"What good is voting out every Republican only to have them replaced by corporate friendly Democrats who will vote against the best economic interests of their constituents"
Really! Let's look at (as an example) the health care record. Republicans promised a health care bill in 1993, when the Congress rejected the Clinton bill. And what did they produce in 26 years? An attempt to overturn the Obama ACA, with nothing to replace it! Does that impress you? Do you not see the difference between a political party that tried to prevent the inability of Americans with pre-existing conditions to obtain health care, as opposed to a different political party that has tried to condemn Americans with preexisting to no health insurance?
18
@FXQ- Where you have a good point, I like the idea of cleaning up or clearing out the Republicans first. Then when the Democrats are in office, call out any and all improprieties.
1
McCready is, like most progressive-minded people, an idealist. He is young, and therefore just now tasting the deep cynicism and hatred latent in this country. I know, I've been there too, as I am sure many if not most NYT readers have. But it's different now, all to a much greater degree. This is not the same country in which even young McCready came of age, much less the one in which this 68 year old did. If he does win, and it says it all that the race is considered even close, and he goes to DC, I expect any remaining idealism will be crushed. I admire his willingness to fight, especially given what he has experienced, and for the youth to take up the fight is our only hope. But at some point wisdom and experience dictate that we accept that things must take a certain course before they can possibly reverse. That's where we are now, that's certainly where I am. Only we're running out of time for the reversal to begin, because the threats are now existential.
38
I recall watching this whole affair play out in the cable TV news. I think MSNBC hit this the hardest, and well done, as per usual!. When the visual and sound of Harris's son swearing the contradiction of his father, on the stand in open court, I got a warm feeling this is the way things should be. After reading this article, I'm just a bit worried that we will have to rely on a single individual's character rather than a general understanding of how things should be in order to maintain ethical integrity in our government.
42
The moral bankruptcy of Republicans (it gets worse at the local and state level) never ceases to amaze and depress any thinking American. Yes, we had big city machines 100 years ago stuffing ballot boxes and using graft as a weapon.
But reform movements arose and Democrats mostly removed the most egregious practices. But even here in the north, some of our local Republicans in my area are still doing perp walks.
State legislatures need to remove ballot collection as an option. Voters need to mail or deposit ballots in a central supervised location. States need to enact redistricting reforms including non-partisan bodies, to draw district lines.
Frank, thanks for the profile on McCready. He fits the district even if he likely is unappealing as a moderate, veteran, Christian and straight white dude to a lot of the Gray Lady's readership. Big Tent. Learn to love it or learn to love the crazies back in charge. That is the stark choice.
23
@Unworthy Servanti am a 67 year old, liberal democrat and I will vote for McCready in this election just as I did in the last one. Yes, he is a centrist, but he is far above any one running on the other side.
6
@marion bruner My comment about our candidate was supportive as I'm a center-left person myself outside of the left wing dominant readership here. It was a bit of sarcasm on my part.
I hope Dan McCready wins his election, and takes with him to Washington a healthy cynicism (along with his abundant idealism) he wouldn't have gained without having endured this ordeal. He'll be an even more effective legislator for having had his eyes opened in such dispiriting fashion.
39
See what's happening in Florida, where 1.4 million citizens were denied voting rights even though they had served their sentences. We passed Amendment 4 (by a large majority) to give those American Citizens their voting rights back. Now the Republican controlled legislature is trying to make them pay for past fines and fees. These fines and fees were piled on punishment in the first place. Florida Republicans do not want to take responsibility for decades and decades of racist justice, which is no justice at all.
70
Citizens need to recognize the inherent conflicts of interest which exist where political parties control the electoral process. Both major parties face the same conflicts and accept the consequences when the other party dominates in a particular state. Neither party will ever do anything to diminish their own ability to skew elections. Citizens should insist on independent and non-partisan election commissions to have full authority over all aspects of elections from voter registration to voting, recounts. Citizens should wake up to the fact that the secretaries of state of every state are elected and are partisan. As such they should not be trusted to control the election process. Just think back to what happened in Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004 or Michigan 2016. See the abject failure of the DNC to reform itself after the 2016 election.
11
I am so sick of candidates pledging to work in harmony with the opposition. If I could I would banish the word 'bipartisan' from the political lexicon. There's right and wrong and a lot of noise that obstructs the path to achieving rational and just outcomes.
14
Republicans seem to feel they will lose on policy so they try to win on tactics and it creates an enormous burden on the system and the voter too harried by the process of making a living
29
@Buoy Duncan
Yes, I think you’re on to something there.
I live in NC 9 and voted for Dan. He is the type of person we need representing us. Honest and committed to serve the public good. We came out the last time enthusiastically and we will be there the next time as well. After all, it was our voices that were silenced by the fraud. We are unrepresented because of the fraud. We are not going to let it happen again.
64
This sad story is a reminder of the devastation wrought on our political system over the past few decades. Because he is a Democrat, Mr. McCready’s very presence in national politics threatens the stereotype held up by Republicans as pure patriotism. His candidacy challenges the simplistic narrative that Repblicans have been pushing for more than 30 years, so much so that they feel he must be stopped whatever the cost.
I am reminded of a time in 1990 when I neglected to put a yellow ribbon on my door in the condo community where I lived. Many of my neighbors at that time branded me as unpatriotic and not supportive of our troops. For me, this was the very beginning of the divisiveness that is now destroying our country. Here was my dilemma; if I didn’t support the 1990 invasion of Kuwait my neighbors saw me as unpatriotic and worse non-supportive of our troops. In my neighbors’ eyes displaying or not displaying a ridiculous symbol determined one’s love of country. It was yet another reckless public relations campaign (implemented by Republicans) that divided our incredibly complex socio-political world into two overly simple camps, us and them.
63
I would like to know what the DNC is doing to help McCready? How about the many declared Dem candidates for President? How about Pelosi? How about AOC? Is he too middle of the road for them? He should be getting everything from his party now in order to win this seat and to rev up the base. 2020 will have more of the same from the Republicans. A win of this seat in 2019 will show them the meaning of democracy.
44
I hope Mr. McCready ends up in Congress and stays in steady contact with as many people as possible in his district. Until people understand that good government is possible and that it requires action and work of them (including turning off Fox News), committing to good, ethical candidates, we are lost. But if people do work hard on behalf of candidates like this, we have a chance to survive. We don't have to agree all the time, as long as the facts are the same and our end goal is the same.
35
During the 2018 election season, my neighbor showed me a fund raising letter they had received from the GOP.
It included a letter with a Trump letterhead and signature, and the small print and return address were the RNC.
This is a direct quote from the letter -
"Every contribution of $140 will pay for 210 absentee ballots."
Contributions are buying absentee ballots?
How can that be? Isn't buying votes illegal?
Mr Bruni, I still have the letter if you want to contact me.
I'd really like for someone to look into this.
80
He is a good man and if North Carolina voters had any sense they would be proud to elect him to office so that he can reform the election system and improve voter’s rights. But we know that the Republican Party will cynically slander him in order to maintain power and control. That is how they game the system!
43
If North Carolina voters had any sense they would write in McCready in the primary and nominate him for the Republican party as well as the Democratic. Perhaps then NC will gain back some of its lost reputation.
30
This article is extremely timely; we are a year away from a very important presidential election. I fully expect republicans, with a distinct numerical disadvantage, to try to limit voting. When Bush 'won' over Gore, the Florida mess was not the only case of 'voting irregularities'. Presently, the case you write about is not the only incident.
States are in charge of voting, specifically the secretary of state if each state. They decide the hours, purchase the voting machines, everything. At the risk of being alarmist, I fully expect republican states to attempt to limit voting in 2020, as they have in the past.
If there is a discrepancy, 'studies' a month or 2 after the fact tend to have little impact.
We need consistent voting laws, longer voting hours, better voting machines, election day a national holiday, and perhaps some type of commission in place and ready to deal with voter suppression as it happens.
Thanks for this article Frank, and please help the country keep focus on this problem
70
The veterans who once defended our country on the battlefield are now running for, and getting elected, to public office. And although some like Dan McCready and Amy McGrath may have lost in 2018, they will run again.
And I hope that soon we will be able to say, "The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand."
59
Good going, Mr. McCready. Keep up the strong work! I look forward to reading about your work in the U.S. Congress.
54
Just imagine what the results of the next national election would look like if all House districts were redrawn fairly by computers using census records, every eligible voter was encouraged to register online or with a simple form that could be completed at a local post office, a ballot was then sent to the voter's official residence one month before election day, with a postage paid envelope for its return. No one would be required to stand in a line, find child care, lose time from work, or get a ride to the polls. Every voter would be represented by their paper ballot counted by a scanner, so no "funny" touch screens changing votes. No secretaries of state suddenly "purging" purported felons at the last minute. No absentee ballot scams, no misleading Buchanan ballots, no hanging chads. I bet the composition of Congress would be very different with a system like that.
95
@Susan Voting that's fair and makes sense? That's crazy talk!
Local politics has always been where the crooks were. When I was in college I requested an absentee ballot. It didn't come because the local election officials knew me and knew that I would vote to the left of them. After that I went home to vote in person, because I was pretty sure they were not savvy enough to rig the machines.
27
In my precinct in Iowa, we vote on paper ballots, the monitors are our neighbors, both Republican and Democrat, known to us by first name or by familiar sight, and they count together. The possibility of fraud is zero.
It would not cost much to implement "observers and counters" in every precinct who could, and probably would, be volunteers.
An actual precinct-by-precinct tally of fraudulent votes could be counted.
Finally, what will become of Dowless in this column? If we really want to stop voter fraud (and white collar crimes), only 20-year prison sentences will do it. Short of that, everyone knows there is no penalty for being caught.
49
This was not voter fraud, a crime that is virtually non-existent.
This was election tampering, a completely different offense that was committed not by voters but by a candidate.
35
@John In my Vermont town, we vote by paper ballot too, in the elementary school gym. There's a whole procedure involving our local Justices of the Peace, to allow the homebound to vote at home by paper ballot if they haven't managed to get an absentee ballot ahead of election day. The monitors are also our neighbors; the votes are counted by locally appointed officers (also our neighbors). And I can see this used in the city neighborhood I grew up in - volunteers, local and vetted. By all means , Susan, scan 'em for the counting - not a bad thought.
1
@Jerry Engelbach To say that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent is not to say that it doesn't exist at all. In fact, Ann Coulter committed voter fraud:
https://harpers.org/blog/2007/05/voting-fraud-ann-coulter-and-the-fbi/
I speak in metaphors and every once in a while I am successful in expressing my love of both Red and Blue America but I have grown up with a really dark blue perspective. My father taught me that when you really think your beliefs are truth it is time to start convincing yourself your beliefs are wrong.
Red and Blue America are two different societies and although there is a belief that this is a political argument it is far more fundamental. You eat differently, you believe differently, you think differently you have two different Americas.
I am trying to use a metaphor of the game of curling where there are rules and everyone follows the rules. Nobody ever cheats it is fundamental to the game.
I can't understand how anyone who cheats can claim to love their country when they violate a fundamental principle of government of the people, by the people and for the people.
What am I missing when I say cheating in an election is treason? The willingness of both sides to cheat tells me both sides love the battle more than they love the country.
36
@Montreal Moe I like everything you say here and agree with your idealism. But you say that both sides cheat. Would you point to one instance of a Democrat anywhere in America who has stuffed a ballot box and/or purposefully miscounted ballots so as to win an election ?
2
@Montreal Moe
No, no, a thousand times no! There is no 'both sides' on this issue. There is only one side that wants power at any cost.
2
@Billwilly
I write for myself and the people who think as L do. I am a Socratic, if I were a Sophist I might be a Republican or a conservative but I do not understand sophistry. I am a Socratic not a stoic. I do not understand stoicism. Because I am a Socratic I search for truth even if I know truth is often inconvenient. Because I am a Socratic I cannot be a Cynic because even though Cynicism rules the search for truth becomes all the more important.
Billwilly I understand your pain but I understand the other side lies to you but the real pain is the lies you tell yourself. You don't understand that when during his debate with Carter when Reagan said "The he goes again" the code left unsaid was he is telling the inconvenient truth.
1
My son, now 36, lives in Charlotte. Indeed, he lives in NC-9.
He grew up in a politically active family whose political activity goes back four generations. When he was a boy, politics didn't define the family quite the way it did when I was a boy, but it was still part and parcel of our family's life.
Unlike me, he was fascinated neither by the personalities involved, their overarching political philosophy, their policies, nor the conversation about any of the aforementioned. He simply wasn't interested.
Imagine my surprise when, late last summer, he told me that he was volunteering for Dan McCready's campaign. Imagine my greater surprise when he explained to me not only Mr. McCready's policy proposals but also the overarching political philosophy that drove those policy proposals.
I didn't press, worried about being off-putting. I need not have worried. When he visited, I couldn't get him to shut up about politics, policy and the implications he thought Mr. McCready's election might have for not only NC-9, but for North Carolina waking up from the conservative coma that has damaged so many elements of what had been, just a few years before, a state that served as a roadmap for other southern states seeking to trade the binds of the Old South for the promise of a New South.
I asked him about his excitement. He said, "His policies make sense to me. But, more than that, he's the kind of person I think I can believe in. Know what I mean?"
I said, "Yeah, I do."
157
Having moved to NC just a few years ago it is still simply amazing how bald-faced the NC GOP is regarding election practices that stymie the will of NC voters.
Their actions include gerry-mandering Congressional districts to elect 10 GOP Congressmen from a total of 13 Districts, while the statewide vote splits approx 52%:48%; these GOP-drawn districts were ruled Unconstitutional TWICE by Federal judges- and yet the NC GOP insists nothing need be done. Voter suppression by limiting early voting days & hours; Voter registration suppression, etc, etc.
And yet all the while these"Good NC Republicans" attend their evangelical Sunday church services and sing the praises of their saviour - whom I suggest they would turn away should he re-appear at their church door seeking food, shelter or care.
176
@GTM And they wouldn't let Him vote either!
3
I have never been so happy to receive a request for a political donation as when Dan's request showed up in my mail about a week after the decison to redo of the election, being aware of the circumstances.
53
Praise the veterans all you want. Wear flag pins, place your hand over your heart and recite the pledge. None of that makes you an American. Sacrifice anything or everything for someone else’s right to vote and you no longer need the outward trappings of patriotism. You are a patriot.
When the long sad history of the past decades is written one can only hope that the condemnation of those working so hard to steal the most fundamental right from so many of us lights the way for the next several generations of politicians to practice true patriotism rather than this kind of self preservation and posturing.
53
Mr. Bruni is so right in saying that voter fraud and disenfranchisement is locally grown - clearly the Voting Right's Act of 1965 didn't quite do the job - but with SO MANY issues facing America today, where does one start? Consider today's news that the vile Republicans want to take away health care AGAIN from over 50 million Americans while every other civilized country in the world has long ago provided access to the care that every human on the planet needs at one time or another. Truly, the swamp is so deep and overflowing with slime that I truly believe in my heart that the prognosis for the patient, America, is terminal. Can't be fixed. Maybe it's time to admit defeat and start over again from scratch? Because honestly, democracy is by definition supposed to represent the people that constitute the basis of it's power and this clearly is not the case in this country today, not by a long shot.
51
@Manhattan William - it's really frustrating - but the best place to start is by safeguarding our voting rights. Only when individuals have their legal right to vote can we repair the damage anf build the country we need.
42
@ManhattanWilliam Work to make Sanders or Warren president. It is ALL about systemic corruption. There are still technically in place the levers of democracy. Slime coated though they are, they can still be grasped and the politicians who understand the existential threat to our democracy, Sanders and Warren, will make serious inroads to end corruption.
Otherwise, yes. The founders weren't against revolution. Especially concerning representation.
13
@ManhattanWilliam
when you get liberals who cannot see the big picture in middle America, then we are in trouble. Democrats must run white male candidates who are veterans with business experience, and who stay away from issues of LGBT, abortion, immigration, minorities and sweeping socialism, and instead focus only on wages, health care, some moderate climate stuff, and bipartisanship. Once a majority in both houses of Congress are Democrats again, then some of these other issues can be addressed. Dems, play the long strategic game which will pay off.
23
It makes me wonder where else this has been going on. When you see so many unpopular senators and congressmen getting elected over and over again, it really makes me wonder. Are they cheating? I would not be surprised to hear that many are. Look at McConnell polling in the low 30s in his state for decades; how does he get elected?
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@kay, while cheating might be involved a more plausible explanation may be voter apathy. As a country, we do not vote. Yes, we talk about the sacred right to vote yet it is one we likely fail to exercise. Yes, we could make it easier for people to vote, but even when we try to make it easier (here in Burnet County we have absentee ballots and two weeks of in person early voting with polls open from 7 am to 5 pm, including one Saturday and two of those days from 7 am to 7 pm), turn out is woefully low. And those who vote are generally the most partisan. So even if McConnell polls at 30%, if the majority of the few voters who show up pull the lever for him he will win. And the rest? They will simply complain about the outcome but do nothing about it next election cycle.
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@kay Look to the NC state election board, the decision makers in this case. The membership rules were jiggled around by the Republican controlled legislature. The old election board rules were thrown out along with long-time, experienced members. The "bi-partisan" new members jumped in just as the trial was taking place.
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I don't understand the "do over".
There is an election contest between two people. One cheats and wins. Shouldn't the job just be given to the one who didn't cheat?
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One possible downside to that approach: if both the first and second place contenders are caught cheating, it could result in a fringe-party candidate taking office with an extreme minority of the vote.
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@Dv/dx My thought exactly. What was the count throwing out the fraudulent votes? Perhaps if Harris was still ahead discounting those? But I don't think he was.
The redo itself seems irrational and unjustified. Is this something Republicans would have agreed to if the roles were reversed? Pretty sure that wouldn't happen. McCready should be in congress right now.
At some point republicans have to face up to the fact that their politicians and operatives are hypocritical sociopaths with no moral compass. They are strictly about power for the financial elite which they aim to be through corrupt politics.
They will make unholy alliances with charismatic power-mongering religious grifters who create division and strife with monstrous interpretations of the bible. All of the "threats" to Average Americans that republican leaders propose and the attendant solutions are aimed at keeping Average Americans under the control of the financial elite. When they are hoodwinked into focusing on abortion of all things, they are Not paying attention to their low wages and cuts in the safety net and weakening of regulations that help and protect them. Healthcare, for example. Pollution control and working conditions. And things that directly hurt them like tax breaks for the extremely wealthy, Banking Rules, Corporate Personhood, money in politics. It is truly astounding what the public allows their politicians to focus on in the south. Everywhere else has its share of big money corruption.
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@Dv/dx Yes. In sports when the winner is proven to have cheated, the 2nd place finisher is declared the winner. McCready should be sitting in the House as his district's representative right now.
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" He responded that all fraud was bad and pivoted into his self-pitying, delusional lament about an epidemic of illegal voting by undocumented immigrants."
This is classic Trump; any problem can and will be converted to one in which he is the focus of a victory or of being maligned. This man has a desperate need to be the center of attention. And when he is the center of attention because of a catastrophic failure - like getting fewer votes than HRC - he will convert that into a win just by shifting a few things here and there.
He is a master manipulator and not a master negotiator. Look at all the colossal failures in his negotiation for the funding of the wall or denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. He has promise an infrastructure bill that is nowhere near even beginning to be formulated. He promised better and cheaper healthcare even as he is trying to dismantle Obamacare.
But the saddest part is that 60 million Americans are still in his camp. I weep for America.
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@chickenlover
I have said elsewhere and will say again Trump and his followers aren't delusional they just want everyone else to be deluded into believing what they say. Trump never believed that Obama was born in Kenya but he wanted others to believe it. In a similar way Harris knows exactly what happened when Dowless helped him commit voter fraud but he wants others to believe that it was those criminal brown aliens.
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VOTER FRAUD:
Trump's Czar of Voter Fraud, a fraud himself, Kris Kobach:
Investigating Voter Fraud in Kansas, looking back 18 years he documented 129 noncitizens who voted or tried to vote. That is a state with 1.8 million registered voters. 129 out of 1.8 million.
A horror.
An ACLU attorney responded that 127 improper registration cases since 2000, 43 people appeared to have registered successfully and only 11 appeared to have actually voted, most through clerical errors or confusion. So the tally is 11 voters over 18 years in a state with 1.8 million registered voters.
ELECTION FRAUD:
Meanwhile, McCready lost by 905 election fraud votes perpetrated by a Republican operative.
Not voter fraud, election fraud.
Voter fraud is when a person votes illegally (rare as getting struck by lightning). Election fraud is when a registered voter's ballot has been manipulated.
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@cretino You actually underestimate the problem. You need to multiply your number of voters by the number of elections in which 1.8 million voters produced only 47 documented instances of voter fraud.
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Remember, also, that the GOP controlled NC legislature passed a law that requires a new primary in a case like this.
Otherwise, the damaged Harris would be forced to run again in what would be a sure loss for the GOP or drop out (as he has now said he would) and concede the seat to the Democrat.
The primary gives the GOP a fresh bite at the apple.
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@Paul
Furthermore, the new vote will almost certainly be a special election with only one office being decided. It is well known that special elections favor Republican, because of a lower turnout of lower income or working people.
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McCready has a lot in common with presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg - appealingly bright, patriotic, strong, compassionate, and the kind of leader who understands what it means to serve the public good.
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@common sense advocate
Buttigieg is an avowed Christian. Given that Christians aren't showing a lot of compassion these days with their support of Trump he'll have to explain pretty carefully the values he would bring to the WH.
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@common sense advocate
Yes but if Pete is gay then it tests a whole other prejudice, which may be enough to get a close election lost.
@Hugh CC - he's a good family man, both he and his husband serve our country admirably - and he is a member of the Episcopal Church, not any kind of evangelical church. But it's best said by New York Magazine: "Would anyone be confident in accusing this married, churchgoing, Afghanistan veteran of being ethically inferior to Donald Trump?"
And @Will Hogan - it's high time our country stopped intruding on the committed relationships of other people, especially when those people are of unimpeachable character, with a strong record of helping (instead of assaulting, stealing from, and bankrupting) others.
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“This probably sounds, like, totally cheesy,” he said, “but I just love this country, and we’re not going to fix what’s wrong with it until we get better people there.”
Thank you for your service and honesty Mr. McCready but we will never get better politicians until private money is taken out of the election process.Let's face it, as it now stands , the wealthy and corporations own most of Congress and State houses.
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@Marcus
Yes. The most important reforms to fight for:
Publicly funded elections, with no organizational monies allowed. No contributions from corporations, partnerships, unions, churches, PAC's, 503's, whatever.
A very strict low three digit limit on individual donations to a given campaign. Individuals can be said to need to exercise their free speech rights; organizations cannot. But individuals should not be able to exercise MORE free speech rights for each dollar they can spend.
A legislative repeal of Citizens' United, and a reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine.
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Dan McCready is exactly the kind of person that America needs in politics. I was delighted when I learned that Harris had been squashed, but I had no idea of the toll it took on Mr. McCready or how exemplary he is as a citizen candidate.
I was impressed by Dan's enthusiasm for meeting the voters even when they held different views from his own. I believe that the only way we can expunge the Republican miscreants from all branches of the government is by showing that the vast majority of Americans want the same things - safety, health care, opportunity for themselves and their children. Too many Americans have been seduced by simplistic solutions fostered by people who say they respect them but show that they view them with contempt by their actions.
It is a sincere commitment to work for all people that will turn the tide. That is what I hope is still motivating Dan McCready. I look forward to hearing more from him. Thanks Frank.
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@JohnFred: "Too many Americans have been seduced by simplistic solutions fostered by people who say they respect them but show that they view them with contempt by their actions." Yes, like Mittens Romney and his 47% comment on the 2012 campaign trail. We Democratic voters don't have short term memory loss, and he, as well as his party, learned nothing at all from his defeat or their "autopsy report" from that time. Nope, just double and triple down on the hate, the fear, and the divisiveness they've been riding on since Nixon and then Ray-Gun. SAD.
Hats off to Dan McCready fir sustaining his optimism in the face of all the guano fouling his constituency's nest. The country needs his strength and courage. He's a better man than I and infinitely better than his opposition.
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A literal Boy Scout and proud Veteran actually wins. An evangelical “ preacher “ cheats, and is found out, finally, and the GOP gets a Do-Over. What’s wrong with this picture ? Everything. Just add the imprimatur of “ religion “ to any common Conman, and the rubes eat it up. It’s the dumbing down of America. The more a person watches FOX, the greater the cognitive dissonance, and sheer gullibility.
2020 : Vote like you Mean It.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian-Adding to your points, I wonder why wasn't Don Cready seated? Why should he have to campaign again and pay all the attendant expenses?
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
Not only this, but now that we know that the Russians interfered in 2016, why have we allowed Tweety to remain in office? The Intelligence community has already verified this fact, so why is "Individual 1" still holding the office the Russians and Wikipedia arranged for him? The GOP continues to stonewall on the Mueller report, and America (and the Dems) lost the most qualified presidential candidate ever to run for the office.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian Vote like your life depends on it, I know mine does. (Pre-existing condition)
18
McCready is not only a military hero but also,a hero for insisting on fair elections.His experience got a lot of national notice and we realize that Republican don’t worry about locals who abuse the voting rights but are only concerned about mythical illegal aliens.Best luck to him next time and I hope he gets some extra support.It would be a privilege to have such a dedicated American in the House.
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@JANET MICHAEl
The term "hero" has been misused so often it seems to have little meaning any more. I don't know Mr. McCready's military record, so I won't comment on it. However, his response to the election fraud is, in my opinion, worthy of the therm "heroic." We need more such heroes.
It's a simple formula that everybody knows by now.
If a Republican accuses a Democrat of an act of dishonesty, you can be certain that the Republican is guilty of that act. The highly effective strategy, straight out of Karl Rove's playbook, creates confusion and triggers the confirmation bias of even the most decent and clear-thinking Republicans. It would work just as well for Democrats if they were as tactically able as Republicans.
Somehow, human nature makes it hard to see through this strategy. And so it continues. From Rove to Trump to McConnell to Harris.
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"It [projection of your own mendacities onto your opponents] would work just as well for Democrats if they were as tactically able as Republicans."
It's not a matter of being less "tactically able", it's a matter of being honest, decent and moral, none of which applies to the Republican Party at this point (or since 198o).
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@honestDem
Falsely accusing your opponent of crimes/actions of which you and/or your party are guilty is not something right out of Karl Rove's playbook.
It's actually right out of Benito Mussolini's playbook. Rove just borrowed it.
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@Julian Fernandez
Didn't know this. Thank you for the information -- it makes the strategy all the more repugnant. If that is possible.
1
It's bitterly amusing to see how the GOP warns us of mass shootings, yet these are mostly (but not all) perpetrated by conservative white males, election fraud where Republicans attempt to restrict the voting rights of others in addition to committing wholesale election fraud. Their race bound ignorance is not only nauseating, it's treasonous.
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@Grant Waara --- it's not ignorance. They know exactly what they're doing.
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@Grant Waara It must be tough to be liberal in Torrington. Thanks!
The hypocrisy of the GOP is nauseating, creating laws to reduce the voting of those they think will vote against them and pretending it is for legitimate purposes and then permitting this fraudulent behavior for years. How do those who were aware of this particular travesty and said nothing live with themselves?
However, progressive reform comes in waves. Both democrats and Republicans resort to gerrymandering, it's just that the GOP tends to take it to shameless heights.
As far as outright fraud, you would think some in the Republican party would speak loudly and clearly with disapproval of the travesty McCready has suffered from.
Unfortunately, at this point in history, it appears only the Democrats have the potential to move this country forward- the Republicans will only follow after they've been shellacked for a couple of cycles.
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McCready sounds like the right stuff. Once through the wringer, the only concern would be to question his reason to continue to head into dark waters.
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"Disgraced and reeling, Harris claimed memory problems, reversed course and himself insisted on a new election."
And then chose not to run again, against McCready. I wonder why. lol
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@Doug
How quaint. Now Republicans can add "memory problems" to their long list of excuses & for abrogating responsibility for their (unethical) actions. LOL my dog ate my homework--or ballot!
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Many, many more of these courageous and selfless young people who want to serve the best interests of the American people are exactly what this country needs.
If we who value honesty, trustworthiness and dedication to service work hard enough, the crusty, devious, and self serving old men of the Republican Party will be turfed out in 2018, and good riddance.
The Republican Party has disgraced itself and has deviated so far from its roots that it has become a criminal enterprise.
Lock them Up!
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Republicans like to claim voter fraud as a way to disenfranchise voters they don't like.
But as we see here, the fraud is in the Republican party -- and it's fraudulent attempts to discourage or prevent people from voting around the country, not just these illegal activities in North Carolina.
Good luck to Mr. McCready, who is indeed a real patriot. I for one will send him a donation to keep his campaign going. I hope other readers of the NY Times will do the same.
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@avrds
Yes I will donate too!
1
There are so many of these close districts across the country, where on their face, would seem to support any Progressive candidate.
It's a chicken and egg scenario where one wonders what comes first ? Does the Progressive candidate bring the voters to come to the district and settle in, or do the Progressive voters beg to be represented by a true candidate that will fight for them and their policies ?
It would seem we are at a tipping point because of the policies in Washington being more and more Progressive (when Democrats are actually in power) and by simple demographics.
The republican party is a shrinking base that cannot win on the face of the issues, so shenanigans ensue from domestic AND foreign operatives.
All anyone is asking for is a fair fight.
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@FunkyIrishman
Agree. But never, ever expect the Repubs to fight fair.
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@FunkyIrishman
I am amused by the newfound use of the term "Progressive." It is not interchangeable with "Democrat." Does anyone know history?
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@Claudia
Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive Republican.
1
Gerrymandering can be avoided by instituting computer driven maps for voting districts. It’s high on the list of tools we’ll need to dig ourselves out of this ever deepening ditch.
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@RjW
Computer-driven? Too much StarTrek sir.
Voting fraud is real but Republicans are its perpetrators, not victims.
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@NM Just to clear up one point....this was "election fraud", not "voter fraud". The GOP is masters of "election fraud" with such things as gerrymandering, moving voting booths, removing voting locations, reducing hours to vote, reducing the length of time for absentee voting, tying your vote to having paid your taxes, and related ways to cheat. The GOP wants the public to get confused so that they equate these type of activities with actual "voter fraud" which has been shown to be extremely very small.
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@Will in Canada wehave a federal elction commission.you can register to vote by ticking a box on your tax form and all elections from federal to provincial and municipal are all handled the same way and all ballots are paper so a spoiled ballot is easy to see.also our election campaigns are limited and cannot start until a set time before the election.and we know whos won within a day or so(some recounts are usually neccesary when the vote is close)It dues sometimes work that having more than 2 parties can resultin an ineffective government,but it sure is better than having 2 who are constantly in election mode
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@Will
There is "voter fraud", which is extremely rare; there is "voting fraud" (NM's term), which would seem to include forging absentee ballots as in N.C., and there is "election fraud", which would seem to include microscopic gerrymandering to elect your own party, as the GOP did in N.C.
29