IT'S NOT FRAUD WHEN WE DO IT:

President Trump and his kangaroo court -- the Advisory Commission on Voter Integrity -- never found evidence of widespread voter fraud, the sort of fraud by impersonation that the Republican Party's voter-ID laws are supposed to combat. That's not for lack of trying, but as we've seen in study after study, voter-ID laws are a solution in search of a problem -- and a means of deterring traditionally Democratic constituencies from voting. [...]

Now, however, we have a big, ugly and blatant example of what is very likely election fraud. And strangely, Trump and the rest of the Republicans are silent, which is hardly surprising given that the alleged fraud may have put Republican Mark Harris in the House to represent North Carolina's 9th Congressional District.

The Post reported on a GOP operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, who allegedly ran an operation to collect absentee ballots (which they are not permitted to do) and discard them.

On Monday, the board issued a subpoena to the Harris campaign, according to campaign attorney John Branch. The board is expected to issue one soon to Red Dome Group, a GOP consulting firm based in the suburbs of Charlotte that hired Dowless, according to two people familiar with the probe. . . . 

Investigators with the bipartisan state elections board -- which last week voted unanimously to delay certifying the race -- have identified hundreds of potential witnesses to interview, many of them voters whose absentee ballots were never turned in, according to the people familiar with the probe. That raises the possibility of a weeks-long investigation and an uncertain start date for the next congressman from the 9th District.

The absentee ballots, wouldn't you know, are disproportionately from African American neighborhoods.

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