New Congressional Class to Be Sworn In Without N.C. District 9 Represented

CHARLOTTE – The new class of Congress will be sworn in on Thursday, with one exception. 9th District Congressman-Elect Mark Harris, who has yet to be seated.

With election fraud allegations still being investigated, a scheduled hearing on the findings has now been postponed.

Governor Roy Cooper lashed out at Republicans for what he calls obstructing the investigative process by refusing to submit names to fill out an interim Board of Elections.

“If politicians and the people they hire are manipulating the system to steal elections, all of us should pull together to get to the bottom of it and stop it,” wrote Cooper.

The current board dissolved last week after a panel of judges denied a continuance. Without a board in place, a scheduled hearing that would lay out all the evidence on alleged election fraud has been postponed.

The North Carolina Republican party’s decision to not submit names was, as they wrote on Wednesday, to ensure any future investigations into NC9 are, ” …open, fair, and transparent, and not tainted by actions taken by an illegal board.”

The GOP says the current Board of Elections was too slow in its investigation.

But Gerry Cohen, who served as the special counsel to the North Carolina General Assembly for Nearly 40 years says, with hundreds of thousands of documents and more than 100 witnesses, the state appears to be moving as quickly as possible.

“I’m not sure how anyone could have expected the state board to have completed a serious investigation of election fraud in a couple of weeks,” said Cohen.

Cohen says a House committee can go around the state to investigate the 9th District race itself.

“It can appoint a committee to investigate and then decide who if anyone to seat and whether there should be a new election,” said Cohen.

To further complicate the situation, Harris’ attorney announced today that they would be petitioning the Wake County Superior Court to certify the results of the race.

“The State Board of Elections has not disclosed any information to suggest that the votes in question in the board staff’s investigation are sufficient in number to change the outcome of the 9th Congressional District Election.”