Pat McCrory is going fishing

Pat McCrory is going fishing. He wants citizens to turn in cases of so-called voter fraud. Outrageous! Thanks to Christiane Voisin, who alerted us to this, and who wrote a powerful email to McCrory denouncing this bogus fishing expedition.

Please write to: elections@ncgop.org

You may copy and paste hers, or mine, included below. I find it more effective to articulate your own ideas and send them along. Form letters are less effective than a personal response. But please do email them.

To whom it may concern:

I am outraged that you are soliciting examples of voter fraud from the people of North Carolina. If every case of fraud were uncovered and accounted for, it would still represent an infinitesimally small and statistically insignificant number that would in no way change the result of the gubernatorial election. I know it, you know it, and every independent body and study that has looked at this issue can confirm it.

What is clear is that the state GOP is attempting to delegitimize the voting process as a whole, because it knows the only way to maintain its current stranglehold on power is to disenfranchise as many voters—particularly voters of color—because they tend to, with good reason, vote Democratic. Closing polling stations, limiting early voting, and now, challenging same day registration under the morally bankrupt cover of “fraud” is a despicable abrogation of the rights of the people.

When this chapter is written into the history books, Pat McCrory, his legal team, the state legislators who passed what many call the most restrictive voting laws in the nation, the Civitas Institute, and anyone else who continues to create uncertainty and confusion under the guise of fraud will be seen as apologists for the same tactics used in the Jim Crow South. Make no mistake: the current campaign is merely a sanitized version of tactics such as poll taxes and literacy tests. Much the way white nationalists are being re-branded as the so-called “alt-right,” voter suppression is being rebranded as an attempt to root out fraud.

We all heard the outrageous and specious claims made by Donald Trump and his supporters on the campaign trail that the election was being “rigged.” Completely fantastical stories were swirling that, for example, bus loads of paid operatives would be double voting in inner-city (a thinly veiled code for “black”) Philadelphia. This request for reports of fraud is a fishing expedition that wastes taxpayers money, subverts the rule of law, and is nothing short of racist.

Yesterday I sat behind McCrory’s legal team at the State Board of Election hearing in Raleigh, shaking my head at every attempt at obfuscation and delay they foisted upon us, cheering inside at they were beaten back by the scarcely patient Joshua Malcolm of the Board. In the end, Roy Cooper will be Governor. You just hope to sow the seeds of confusion that you hope will grow into the pernicious weeds of voter suppression.

Illegal and racist gerrymandering and a coordinated attempt to disenfranchise people of color may work in the short term to secure ill-gotten and fleeting power. If you want to continue your agenda of gutting clean air and water regulations, slashing taxes, hobbling teachers and the public schools, and denying rights to LGBTQ people, how about make your case directly to the voters? Win on ideas, not on dirty tricks.

Nothing could be more antithetical to American ideals than attempting to deny the people’s sacred right to vote. How dare you.

Peter Wilbur
Winston-Salem, NC