NC Gov. Pat McCrory surveys damage to Orange County office

Last Sunday, the Republican Party headquarters in Orange County, North Carolina, was firebombed by an unknown assailant. Shortly after, GOP spokeswoman Emily Weeks claimed “materials inside, possibly including completed absentee ballots, may have been destroyed.” Unfortunately, holding absentee ballots in the GOP headquarters is very much against the rules. North Carolina election rules stipulate that completed absentee ballots must be returned to the county board of elections by the voter themselves or a “near relative.”

If completed absentee ballots were housed in the GOP’s headquarters, that could be a violation of North Carolina’s State Board of Election’s rules.

When asked if the GOP could have been collecting completed absentee voter ballots, Tracy Ream, the Director of North Carolina’s Orange County Board of Elections told The New Civil Rights Movement via telephone Monday, “they cannot do that.” She cited the State Board of Elections rules.

The attack was parroted on social media by Republican candidate Donald Trump as the work of Democrats trying to rig the election. Weeks’ claim was viewed similarly:

It immediately came off as an attempt at claiming the election was being rigged by whoever burned down the office, wiping away some people’s votes in the process.

But that quickly led to the revelation across social media that stashing completed absentee ballots in such an office would have been illegal to begin with, she then changed her story, insisting that “the ballots were not stored at that office.” So her position now appears to be that completed absentee ballots were destroyed in that office even though they weren’t in that office.

And yet Fox News reported “absentee ballots burned in the attack.”

Despite the frame, the attack was condemned by Hillary Clinton while a group of Democrats rushed to raise funds to help repair the GOP offices. Occupy Democrats has chronicled the various walk-backs and news reports citing burned ballots and the party’s flip-flop regarding their presence.