McHenry Voter Fraud

A story that appeared to break late Friday in NC really hasn't gotten a lot of attention. I'm not sure why, because the left-leaning media could really continue their Republican attacks with this story -- because it's about a current Republican Congressman who appears to only be in Congress because he cheated. This story is especially interesting to Ogre, as it is about his Congressional Representative, Patrick McHenry.

Here's the original (and complete) CBS News Report:

The CBS News Investigative Unit has learned a man who was a field coordinator in Congressman Patrick McHenry's (R-NC) 2004 campaign has been indicted for voter fraud in North Carolina.

The indictment charges that Michael Aaron Lay, 26, illegally cast his ballot in two 2004 Congressional primary run-offs in which McHenry was a candidate. The charges indicate that Lay voted in a district where it was not legal for him to vote.

At the time Lay was listed as a resident in a home owned by 32-year-old McHenry but campaign records indicate Lay's paychecks were sent to an address in Tennessee. McHenry won the primary by only 86 votes. According to Gaston County, North Carolina District Attorney Locke Bell, Lay was indicted on Monday, May 7 by a local grand jury.

CBS News has learned that these charges were first investigated by the North Carolina State Board of Elections up to two years ago. The results were forwarded to the previous Gaston County District Attorney Mike Lands. In January, Bell was elected the new district attorney for the county and pursued the indictment.

Now these charges are very old -- over 2 years for the charges, and 3 years for the vote. The charges were originally raised by McHenry's opponent in the primary, actually before the election. But the NC Board of Elections (D) doesn't really care because this district is a gerrymandered Republican district, so a Republican always wins -- and the Democrats really don't care much which one.

Michael Rogers, over at Blog Active reveals some more details -- about additional "registered voters" who all registered to vote with Patrick McHenry's own address. Now presuming all that information is accurate, there's clear and obvious corruption going on here. When someone wins an election by just 86 votes and suddenly has at least four additional adult people registered at their own address; most of which are on the campaign payroll and voting absentee ballot, something really, really stinks.

So I wonder if anyone will challenge McHenry in 2008.

Previous election results for McHenry (he first ran for Congress in 2004 when the previous Republican Congressman did not run):

In 2004, in the Republican Primary:
David Huffman: 14,280 (35%)
Patrick McHenry: 10,760 (26%)
Sandy Lyons: 8,000 (20%)
George A. Moretz: 7,812 (19%)
Total: 40,852 voters

Then the 2nd Primary Runoff:
Patrick McHenry: 15,015 (50.1%)
David Huffman: 14,930 (49.9%)
Total: 29,945 voters

And the 2004 General Election:
Patrick McHenry REP 157,884 (64%)
Anne N. Fischer DEM 88,233 (36%)

The 2006 General Election (No Primary Challenger for McHenry):
Patrick McHenry REP 94,179 (62%)
Richard Carsner DEM 58,214 (38%)

No primary challenger in the 2006 election after such a close and contested rave in 2004? Isn't that interesting? Now the Ogre simply doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on campaigning. And Ogre has to actually work for a living, instead of making a living, well, campaigning for election. But maybe the Ogre should put his name on the ballot next year just in case people want to vote for someone other than McHenry...

Posted by: Ogre at 11:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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