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Justice Paul C. Ridgeway of the Wake County Superior Court indicated that he was reluctant to intervene in a matter within the jurisdiction of another branch of government. (Robert Willett / The News & Observer via AP)
A judge from a state of North Carolina refused to certify the election results in the 9th congressional district, citing the power of election officials to delay certification while continuing the investigation into allegations of election fraud.
At a hearing held in Raleigh on Tuesday, Wake County Superior Court Judge, Paul Ridgeway, ruled against Republican Mark Harris, who heads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in unofficial results of the election of November 6.
The State Board of Elections decided not to certify the results after accusations of electoral fraud were denounced in the 9th district, a strip of farmland and small towns extending from Charlotte to Fayetteville on along the border of South Carolina.
A Harris lawyer claimed that the state council did not submit evidence that the fraud was sufficiently widespread to affect the outcome. Harris said the investigation is expected to continue but added that he should sit in the meantime.
State Council and McCready lawyers claimed that enough ballots were being considered to challenge the margin. Marc Elias, a Washington-based election lawyer who represents political committees and Democratic candidates, argued for McCready that nothing in the North Carolina law required that the investigation be completed at a later date. certain date.
Ridgeway suggested to the court that he was reluctant to intervene in a case that falls under the authority of another branch of government.
Charges that a political officer was hired by Harris to run his mail-order voting program illegally collected by voters. An investigation is also underway to determine whether the staff member, Leslie McCrae Dowless, or his employees threw the unrepresented ballots for Harris.
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Counsel for the State Council noted that the nine-member council – consisting of four Republicans, four Democrats and one unaffiliated elector – voted unanimously not to certify the results of the ninth district.
The investigation was dissociated from the fact that the state electoral council was dissolved in December, following a court decision made earlier in the year that had determined its composition. unconstitutional.
The council is expected to be reconstituted on January 31 under a new law approved in December.
Although Ridgeway had ordered its staff to certify the results, there was no indication that Harris would have been well received at the convention. Democrats in the House have vowed not to sit on Harris until the public inquiry is over and have the power, with their new majority, to call new elections.
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