‘There is some onus on the voter…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) The well-publicized, high-stakes special election in North Carolina‘s 9th Congressional District seems to have been a rude awakening for some of its former voters who only now are seeing the effects of Democrat-led gerrymandering forced by the activist courts.
Hundreds of voters from Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County showed up at the polls Tuesday expecting to have their say in the race to fill the last disputed seat of the midterm election, only to be disappointed, reported the Charlotte Observer.
We have had a number of calls this morning of folks wanting to vote in today’s election for the 9th Congressional District. The Town of Huntersville is in the 12th Congressional District.
Visit the @MeckCounty Board of Elections for more information – https://t.co/tOWBc9WGvZ
— Town of Huntersville (@HuntersvilleGOV) September 10, 2019
The historically red 9th district—which wrapped around the affluent southern suburbs of Charlotte, the state’s largest city—was forcibly redrawn in 2017 after left-wing activists sued the state’s Republican-led legislature, claiming racism had factored into the map’s creation during the previous round of redistricting.
Last year’s victory by Republican candidate Mark Harris over Democrat Dan McCready was invalidated after partisan members of the State Board of Elections claimed ballot fraud against a longtime political operative in one of the rural counties within the new district.
In the special election, McCready—now at the tail-end of a two-year-long campaign—faced Republican state Sen. Dan Bishop, as well as two other outside candidates. Outside political-action committees invested millions in TV ads and other get-out-the-vote messaging.
The close involvement of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence made it a mandate on the president’s administration if not a bellwether portending the outcome of his re-election campaign next year.
But while the media has hyped the district’s conservative history, most have remained silent on the redistricting that drastically shifted the electoral dynamics.
So silent, it seems, that even the voters were caught unaware.