As Mark Harris continues his efforts to sue his way into Congress, yesterday was the deadline for legal briefs to the Wake County Superior Court in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.
While Harris did submit in excess of 600 pages of filings (not to be confused with the well over 100,000 documents he is still refusing to share), news reporting dismissed his campaign’s hand-waving as “arguments we’ve heard before.” In contrast, the biggest news of the day came from the NC State Board of Elections’ clear rebuke of Harris’s attempts to stall the investigation into election fraud committed by his campaign, while simultaneously demanding the race be certified. Here’s what the State Board of Elections had to say:
“The investigation into the matter included requests for documents from Petitioner. Within the last few days preceding this Response, the “Harris Committee” provided what it represents are all responsive documents. That delayed production is a substantial source of the prolonged investigation, and continuations of the proposed hearing.”
The State Board of Election then went on to detail the ways the Harris campaign had failed to meet the required legal standard to justify requesting a judge’s intervention, stating that “each of [the] petitioner’s contentions is refuted by fact and law.”
By summarily dismissing Harris’s request for immediate action, and simultaneously placing the blame for this drawn out process at the feet of Harris’s deliberate obstruction, the NC State Board of Elections has effectively set up an impossible question for Harris to answer: under what grounds does Mark Harris continue to believe he should be seated before a full and thorough investigation can be concluded?