RALEIGH, N.C. — Legislation quickly passed by North Carolina’s lawmakers this week would prepare a path for Republicans to dump their nominee in a still-undecided U.S. House race marred with ballot fraud allegations.

“I think (legislators are) worried that Mark Harris might be damaged goods and they want to have the opportunity to have a different Republican nominee,” said Carter Wrenn, a Republican operative and consultant to former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and others for more than 40 years. “That’s how I read those tea leaves.”

If the state elections board decides ballot irregularities or other problems cast the true outcome into doubt and force a redo, the legislation – if allowed to go into law by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper – would require new primary elections in the 9th Congressional District race, in addition to a new general election.

That would allow Republicans another look at Mark Harris, the Republican who led Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in unofficial results. Harris hasn’t been certified the winner, and an investigation is looking into missing absentee ballots in rural Bladen County and whether unsealed ballots illegally handled by collection teams there could have been altered.

Bladen was the only county among the eight within the 9th District where Harris won a majority of mail-in absentee ballots over McCready.

State Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican, said holding new primary elections in the 9th District made sense because unusual absentee ballot results also cropped up during last May’s primary.

Harris won 96 percent of the mail-in ballots in Bladen County on the way to his narrow victory over Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger.

The Republican-led General Assembly “has a political motive for doing this. They realize that Mark Harris is a damaged candidate and they’re trying to find a means of replacing him on the ballot,” said U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield, a North Carolina Democrat.

“So this is a pre-emptive strike, in my opinion, to remove Mark Harris and to get another nominee in there.”


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