Making voting harder since 2011:

Lambeth said he is willing to amend the proposed legislation to help attract non-school sites as potential polling places. When asked about whether the legislation could hamper voting in low-income neighborhoods that use schools as precincts, Lambeth said a local school board “should know whether its schools can be made safe or not, with areas secured enough, to allow voting on election days.”

“I focused entirely on the school safety issue, and not the impact on elections. Some schools could have extra on-site security in place on election days” he said.

a) If you were focused entirely on school safety, you would have done something (anything) to limit access to deadly firearms in the wake of all the mass school shootings, and b) There are three (3) separate Amendments to the U.S. Constitution designed to protect the right to vote, so if you completely ignored the potential impact on elections, you are not qualified to be a lawmaker, period. But I think you were well aware of that impact, and are actually counting on it:

And the NC GOP's all-over-the-map efforts to handle it:

The Earth shook and the seas parted as politicos from both parties appeared to join hands, perhaps taking in the gathering evidence that a Republican operative may have hacked our election apparatus, piloting an alleged spider web of a get-out-the-vote campaign or perhaps more appropriately, a get-the-vote-out campaign, accused of illegally handling – or, worst-case scenario, destroying – thousands of absentee ballots.

The accord was over before you could fully appreciate it, shattered Monday when top Republicans in the 9th urged members of the state’s elections board to certify the results of Baptist minister Mark Harris’ supremely suspect victory if they cannot produce evidence of wrongdoing by Congress’ return in January.

Which merely drives home the message the 9th District is incapable of policing itself. There is a *lot* of evidence, including direct testimony, that considerable wrongdoing occurred. Yes, much of that evidence was discovered/compiled by local media outlets, as opposed to the state Board of Elections. But it exists, nonetheless. That fraudulent cat is not going back in the bag, no matter how much local Republicans want it to. As to having another Primary, Rob Schofield has (once again) brought my better angels to the surface:

We might just win this race, but still lose the war on voters:

At this point, it is easy to take a victory lap and point out the hypocrisy of the voter fraud outrage machine, the members of the fraudulent fraud squad who proclaim voter fraud at every turn but ignore what’s going on in Bladen. Follow-up investigations have revealed many of the unsavory details of a history of potential problems in Bladen, history which Republican Party officials apparently ignored for at least a few elections.

There’s likely going to be a new election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, and Harris might even win again if there’s no way of connecting him directly to the election crimes. But the facts of Bladen will be elided into a general sense that elections can be “stolen” and that “voter fraud” remains a major problem.

Republicans have long since embraced the idea that Crisis = Opportunity (fun fact: The Chinese symbol for weiji does *not* actually translate to that, but the philosophical cat is out of the bag, so just roll with it). The GOP views any new development, even embarrassingly negative ones, as a chance to grab more power for themselves. And usually at the expense of others. It is also no comfort that North Carolina is not alone in these GOP voter suppression efforts:

3-judge panel rules 4 Wake County House districts unconstitutional:

The ruling won't change the lines for Tuesday's legislative elections, but the panel said the General Assembly must redraw the districts no later than the end of its next regular session or July 1 of next year, whichever comes first. The districts involved are House District 36, currently held by Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake; House District 37, held by Rep. John Adcock, R-Wake; House District 40, held by Rep. Joe John, D-Wake; and House District 41, held by Rep. Gale Adcock.

N.C. House Elections and Ethics Law Chairman David Lewis, R-Harnett, said leadership will review the ruling over the next few weeks and decide its next step. "Obviously I disagree with the Decision and believe it will create voter uncertainty and confusion," Lewis said in a statement.

Oh, that's rich. Drawing unconstitutional districts is not the danger, it's fixing the problem we should be afraid of. If you look the word "Hubris" up in the dictionary, there a picture of David Lewis over in the margin.

Purging African-Americans from the voter rolls to stop Stacey Abrams:

My lawyer had to threaten Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp with a federal lawsuit to force him to turn over the names of over half a million voters whose citizenship rights he quietly extinguished. This past week, I released the name of every one of these Georgia voters Kemp flushed from voter rolls in 2017. If you’re a Georgia resident, check the list. If your name is on it, re-register right now. You only have through tomorrow (October 9).

It’s no coincidence that Georgia’s Purge’n General is also running for Governor: The Republican candidate is fighting a dead-even race against Stacey Abrams, Democratic House Minority Leader. Abrams, if she wins, would become the first Black woman governor in US history.

Been seeing this on social media for several days now, and I figured we'd better dig in to make sure they don't try this crap in NC: