I know they can order a new election. Can they also disqualify candidate for cheating?
The North Carolina Dems need to come down hard on this. It’s a fight they can’t lose. I hope they have a platoon of lawyers to piece this together.
I beleive that the newly constituted election board has 3 Democrats (appointed by Gov. Cooper) and 2 republicans appointed by Cooper off a list that the republicans submitted.
But given that the republicans on the old board (whose make-up was overturned by the NC Courts) would not certify the results, I think its a forgone conclusion that a new election is going to happen.
The problem is that there is a LOT of evidence that the Dowless (the republican operative hired by the corrupt republican preacher/candidate) not only submitted fraudulent ballots, but that he destroyed ballots that he thought were for the Democratic candidate.
No. But if permitted, his party can re-run the primary and attempt to get someone else nominated. Under the old laws (up until sometime in Jan 2019) a new election would be run with the same candidates as the invalidated one. The NC legislature is trying to (or maybe already has) rewrite the law such that a new election means new primaries too. They don’t like Harris much even if he is electable.
And so it continues
The Old republican legislature (where they had a super majority) passed a new election law in December which (a) restored the old 3-2 (my understanding of make-up) board and (b) changed the law to allow any rerun election to have new primaries (under the old law, the selected candidates would be the only ones on the ballots). This was aimed at getting Harris off the ballot.
Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed this bill, but was then overridden by the legislature. So there will be new primaries. However, unclear if Harris will be defeated, and if he is if his wingnutter supporters will just stay home.
I think the consensus is no matter what happens, the D’s will likely win the seat.
I’m not underestimating the likelihood that Bible-Believing Q-Anon Republicans will show up at a by-election that Democratic voters blow off because it’s a nice day and no one physically forced them to vote.
Of greater importance to me: Can they ensure that there would be no cheating in any newly ordered election?
Having the Dowless prosecution started by the date of the new election should be a nice deterrent. Ballot alteration and/or destruction is a felony in NC, and by accounts there were a few thousand such ballots. It’ll have to be a state trial though, the federal DA is hopeless.