Re the saga of North Carolina’s still undecided governor’s race between Gov. Pat McCrory and Attorney General Roy Cooper—excellent reporting by CJ’s Dan Way on yesterday’s Durham County Board of Elections meeting. By a 2-1 party line vote, the board agreed to convene a full hearing of the evidence that the county’s vote-tallying process may have been corrupted by software problems.
The deciding vote was cast by board member Bill Brian–yes, a Republican— but also a vocal defender of the tallying process (emphasis mine):
After a long pause, board chairman William Brian, a Republican, cast the deciding vote to hold the hearing. He said Durham County’s precedent is to set a very low bar for challenging election results, and Stark met it.
“That’s politics, and clearly there is a group here who is determined to protect whatever happened” on Election Day, Stark said of the split vote following the hearing. “Whether that’s because they resent being asked or whether they’re trying to hide something, I don’t know. That would be the Democratic Party.”
On several occasions audience members laughed and jeered at Stark’s testimony. That drew a warning from Brian: “This is like being in court so if we can’t keep our reactions down, and under control I may have to ask people to leave.”
Brian said given the “allegations that have been made about Bladen County, and some of the other places,” he understood why Stark was challenging Durham’s results.
The point here is the “allegations in Bladen County, where allegations of a Democrat absentee ballot mill are being made. Along with the ‘move along nothing to see here’ tone in the mainstream media regarding Durham County came the suggestion that Bladen County was a totally separate issue. Maybe–then again maybe not. Buckle in–this is going to take a while.
