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      Mark Meadows removed from North Carolina voter roll amid fraud inquiry

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      Mark Meadows removed from North Carolina voter roll amid fraud inquiryState is investigating whether Trump’s ex-chief of staff committed fraud by registering to vote at residence he never owned or lived in Donald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been removed from the electoral roll in North Carolina, amid a criminal inquiry into whether he committed election fraud by registering to vote at a residence he never owned or lived in.Melanie Thibault, director of the Macon county board of elections, confirmed her decision to the Asheville Citizen Times, which reported that the registration for Meadows’s wife, Debra, remained active.Before working for Trump, Meadows was a congressman from North Carolina.According to the New Yorker, which reported the story last month, Meadows registered as his address a rented mobile home, in Scaly Mountain, which he reportedly had never visited.He voted from there as an absentee in the 2020 presidential election. He has subsequently registered to vote in Virginia.According to neighbors in Scaly Mountain and the former owner of the property, Debra Meadows rented and stayed at the mobile home for “a few nights” but her husband was never seen there.Thibault said Meadows’s removal from the electoral roll was standard procedure under a statute that says a person who votes in another state loses their registration in North Carolina.Meadows, who with his wife owns a condo in Virginia, reportedly voted in that state in 2021, triggering the decision to remove him from the rolls.The Citizen reported that the North Carolina state bureau of investigation was continuing its inquiry into possible voter fraud by Meadows, a fierce Trump loyalist who has never commented on the story.The bureau, the newspaper said, would not comment on whether Meadows’s removal from the North Carolina roll would affect its investigation.Meadows has commented, extensively, on the dangers of voter fraud and its supposed role in Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.He addressed the subject at length in his memoir, The Chief’s Chief, a book which caused huge controversy when it revealed that Trump tested positive then negative for Covid before his first debate against Joe Biden, results which Meadows did not disclose.“President Trump had alerted us to the strong possibility that there would be fraud connected to these mail-in ballots, and we wanted to be on the lookout for it,” Meadows wrote in the book, adding: “We wanted to approach any potential challenges with the utmost seriousness.”The Trump campaign lost the overwhelming majority of cases alleging voter fraud in court. Trump’s lie about mass voter fraud in Biden’s win also fueled the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, in an attempt to stop certification of electoral college results.In his book, Meadows called the Capitol attack “shameful” and “the regrettable actions of a small group of people”.About 800 people, however, have been charged, with offences including seditious conspiracy.Meadows also claimed “millions” of Americans had “genuine concerns” about voter fraud.Meadows’s own legal jeopardy is not confined to North Carolina. The House committee investigating the attack has referred him to the Department of Justice for a possible charge of criminal contempt of Congress.TopicsMark MeadowsUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationNorth CarolinanewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows Is Taken Off North Carolina Voter Roll Amid Fraud Inquiry

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      The state is investigating whether Mr. Meadows cast a legal vote in 2020, after reports questioned if he lived at the address listed on his voter registration.Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff in the Trump White House, has been removed from the voter rolls in North Carolina as officials investigate whether he fraudulently registered to vote and cast a ballot in the state during the 2020 presidential election, according to a local election official.Mr. Meadows, who helped amplify former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, was “administratively removed” from the poll book by the Macon County Board of Elections on Monday “after documentation indicated he lived in Virginia and last voted in the 2021 election there,” Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the North Carolina Board of Elections, said in a statement.Mr. Meadows represented North Carolina in Congress until March 2020, when he went to work in the White House. Months later, Mr. Meadows and his wife, Debra, registered to vote using the address of a modest, three-bedroom mobile home with a rusted roof in Scaly Mountain, N.C.On the voter registration application that Mr. Meadows submitted on Sept. 19, 2020, he stated that he intended to move into the home the following day.And in November, he voted absentee by mail from that address, according to state records.Last month, a report in The New Yorker cast doubt on whether Mr. Meadows had ever lived — or even spent the night — at the home.Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to telephone and text messages on Wednesday afternoon. A spokesman for Mr. Meadows, Ben Williamson, declined to comment.In 2021, Mr. Meadows registered to vote in Virginia, where he and his wife own a condominium in the Washington suburbs, ahead of that state’s contentious election for governor. Property records show that Mr. and Ms. Meadows bought the unit in July 2017.The inquiry into Mr. Meadows’s voting activity in North Carolina remains open, according to Anjanette Grube, public information officer for the state’s Bureau of Investigation.Though documented cases of voter fraud are rare, Mr. Meadows and other Republicans have seized on the concept in order to claim, without evidence, that the results of last presidential election are illegitimate.During an August 2020 interview on CNN, Mr. Meadows warned of fraud in voting by mail. “Do you realize how inaccurate the voter rolls are, with just people just moving around, let alone the people that die off?” he told the host, Jake Tapper.When Mr. Tapper said there was no evidence of widespread vote fraud, Mr. Meadows replied, “There’s no evidence that there’s not, either. That’s the definition of fraud, Jake.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      Cawthorn Draws Criticism From Republicans Over Cocaine and Orgies Comments

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      For Mr. Cawthorn, a pro-Trump North Carolina congressman, youthful brashness that helped him win his seat now strikes some voters as recklessness. HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — In the era of Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party — when making falsehoods about an election isn’t disqualifying, when heckling a president at the State of the Union is no big deal, when attending an event tied to white supremacists doesn’t lead to exile — it may still be possible for a hard-right member of Congress to go too far.That is the object lesson of Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, the House’s youngest member, whose bid for a second term is in jeopardy after a series of incendiary statements and personal foibles have soured many former supporters.“I voted for Madison, but I think I’ll pass now because of integrity issues,’’ said John Harper, a retired furniture finisher in Franklin, N.C., at a Republican event in Mr. Cawthorn’s district last week. “I was fooled last time. I won’t be fooled again.”Mr. Cawthorn, 26, called President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine “a thug” and his country “incredibly evil” as Russian tanks rolled in. The congressman has made headlines for bringing a knife to a school board meeting and bringing a gun through airport security. Mr. Cawthorn, who has used a wheelchair since being injured in an automobile accident when he was 18, was charged this month with driving with a revoked license. He has a May court date on the misdemeanor count that carries jail time. Unlike some other far-right members of Congress — including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, both of whom booed President Biden during his State of the Union speech — Mr. Cawthorn is also saddled with a yearslong series of hyperbolic claims about his personal life, raising questions about his honesty.One of those claims finally set off his fellow House Republicans this week: a bizarre assertion he made on a conservative YouTube channel that people he “looked up to” in Washington — presumably Republican lawmakers — invited him to orgies and used cocaine. On Tuesday, upset House Republicans at a closed-door meeting questioned the remarks, and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, told colleagues that he would speak to Mr. Cawthorn. On Wednesday, he did so. Afterward, Mr. McCarthy told reporters that Mr. Cawthorn admitted the allegations were untrue. The minority leader said that he told the freshman congressman that he had lost trust in him and that he needed to turn his life around. Mr. McCarthy, who aspires to be House speaker, acted only after declining to discipline other members for norm-shattering behavior and accusations. They include Representatives Paul Gosar of Arizona, who posted an animated video showing him killing a Democratic congresswoman, and Matt Gaetz of Florida, who is under federal investigation for allegations of sex trafficking. Although Mr. McCarthy recently condemned Ms. Taylor Greene for an appearance at a conference organized by a white supremacist, he refused last year to back her removal from committees for endorsing violent behavior and spreading bigoted conspiracy theories. Well before Mr. Cawthorn’s latest episode, his youthful brashness — which once appealed to the conservative older voters of far-west North Carolina — struck some as reckless and immature. Interviews last week with Republican voters and party leaders in his district — a largely working-class region set amid the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains — suggested that his impetuousness is working against him.“People of western North Carolina are tired of the antics,’’ said Michele Woodhouse, the elected Republican chair of Mr. Cawthorn’s district and a former staunch supporter. Now she is running against him in the primary in May.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Mr. Cawthorn faces a total of seven Republican challengers, a field that includes other former supporters, who accuse him of neglecting constituents while chasing Instagram followers with fiery rhetoric and pursuing donors with expensive travel outside the state.In the past, North Carolina’s Republican officials largely held their tongues about Mr. Cawthorn. His comments about Ukraine ushered in more open criticism, including from Senator Thom Tillis and the State House speaker, Tim Moore, who called him “reckless” in The News & Observer. The congressman, who declined repeated requests for an interview, seemed to acknowledge some of the doubts about him at a debate in Henderson County on Saturday. “I’ll be the first to admit, 26 years old, I don’t have all the wisdom in the world,’’ he told the crowd. “Obviously when it comes to driving, I’ve got some work to do.’’The audience, largely voters with gray hair, laughed, and some applauded.The audience listens during the primary debate at Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock, N.C., on Saturday.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesLuke Ball, a spokesman for Mr. Cawthorn, predicted that Mr. Cawthorn would easily win the primary and suggested that voters at the district gatherings were unrepresentative. “Some attending local G.O.P. events are affiliated with Congressman Cawthorn’s primary opponents and have welcomed the opportunity to slight Mr. Cawthorn’s service and candidacy,’’ Mr. Ball said.Jennifer Cook, a nurse in Macon County, attended one such gathering to support her husband, who is running for sheriff. She said she voted for Mr. Cawthorn in 2020 but has no plans to do it again. “Madison has disappointed me in his actions on many things since he was elected,’’ Ms. Cook said. “I think driving without a license is saying, ‘I can do what I want, the law doesn’t pertain to me.’ That’s not the kind of person I want representing me.’’Mr. Cawthorn has the advantage of broad name recognition in a field of challengers who, with a couple of exceptions, have raised little money needed to become better known. He also has the endorsement of Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Cawthorn identified on Saturday as “a man who mentors me.”An internal poll of likely Republican voters this month for a Cawthorn rival showed the congressman leading the field with 52 percent and 17 percent undecided. “Cawthorn is right on the bubble of the 50 percent mark; incumbents who slip below that during the campaign are in danger,’’ wrote Glen Bolger, a top Republican pollster who conducted the poll.Mr. Cawthorn did himself no favors last year when he announced he would run in a new district near Charlotte, the state’s largest city. Political insiders speculated that he sought a higher profile in a major media market ahead of an eventual statewide run. But then legal challenges led to a redrawn state congressional map, and Mr. Cawthorn’s planned new district tilted Democratic. So he returned home to his old district, where viable contenders had joined the race in his absence.“Had he not flirted with another district, he wouldn’t be in this situation, where there’s a question of whether he’ll win this primary,’’ said Christopher Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. “It’s the thing that opened the door for the field to expand.”It’s unclear if Mr. Cawthorn’s temporary desertion has penetrated to average voters, even if it angers party officials. “I believe he probably has lost most of the local-level Republican movers and shakers,’’ said David Baker, a voter who attended a recent Republican convention in Jackson County. But Mr. Baker, an employee benefits expert, said rank-and-file Republicans like himself still support Mr. Cawthorn because of his “clarity on those issues that were so important to Trump.”Mr. Cawthorn was raised in Hendersonville, N.C., a small community where he was home-schooled. His meteoric rise began with his defeat of a primary candidate handpicked to fill the seat held by former Representative Mark Meadows, who was appointed Mr. Trump’s White House chief of staff.During the 2020 campaign, a group of alumni of Patrick Henry College, which Mr. Cawthorn briefly attended, accused him of “sexually predatory behavior,’’ which he denied. He suggested during the campaign that his 2014 auto accident had “derailed” his plans to attend the Naval Academy. Reporting showed that his Annapolis application had already been rejected before the crash. Mr. Cawthorn amplified false accusations of election fraud at the Jan. 6 rally in Washington that preceded the riot at the Capitol.Jim Bourg/ReutersDays after being sworn in, Mr. Cawthorn addressed the rally behind the White House on Jan. 6 that preceded the violent siege of the Capitol. He amplified false conspiracies of fraud in the presidential election. Days earlier, he had tweeted, “It’s time to fight.’’ In the aftermath of the riot, he denounced the violence, writing in a tweet that “it wasn’t patriotism it was thuggery.”This year, a group of North Carolina voters sought to have Mr. Cawthorn disqualified from re-election because of his participation in an “insurrection.” A judge blocked the effort.George Erwin, a retired county sheriff who organized a group of law enforcement officials to endorse Mr. Cawthorn in 2020, said he no longer backed him, in part because of his actions around Jan. 6.“The words that come out of his mouth incite people,’’ said Mr. Erwin, who is now supporting a Cawthorn challenger, Rod Honeycutt, a retired Army colonel. “He says he backs the blue, but what he does is, he backs them in a corner with his antics. If you really want to back the blue, obey the law.”The biggest primary threat to Mr. Cawthorn may come from a state senator, Chuck Edwards, who has the endorsements of most members of the state legislature in the district.State Senator Chuck Edwards, who owns several McDonald’s franchises, may be the biggest primary threat to Mr. Cawthorn.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesMichele Woodhouse, a former supporter of Mr. Cawthorn, is now running against him in the Republican primary.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesMr. Edwards, the owner of several McDonald’s franchises, had more than $300,000 in his campaign account at the end of last year, more than Mr. Cawthorn reported. Mr. Cawthorn has been one of the House’s top fund-raisers, pulling in $2.8 million in 2021 thanks to a national donor base, but he has also spent prodigiously, with more than half going toward fund-raising. He spent $28,000 on campaign air travel and $11,000 at a Waldorf Astoria hotel in Orlando, according to an analysis by The Asheville Citizen Times.At the debate, Mr. Edwards confined his attacks to a resolution Mr. Cawthorn introduced in Washington: a 52-point plan calling for a one-third reduction in federal spending, as well as reforming Social Security by “incentivizing people to work and get off entitlement programs.’’“I would not cut Social Security benefits by a third, as is suggested in our congressman’s garbled 52-point plan for America,’’ Mr. Edwards said. “Go read it,’’ he told the audience. “It would require you to go back to work to collect your Social Security.”Mr. Cawthorn responded that he wants to cut “wasteful” spending but not Social Security. Mr. Cawthorn, seated at the far-right of the table, at a debate last Saturday in Flat Rock, N.C., with seven Republican rivals.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesTo prevail in the primary on May 17, a candidate must win with more than 30 percent of the vote; if not, the top two finishers will face a runoff. There is broad speculation over whether Mr. Cawthorn, even as the front-runner, can surpass 30 percent. Still, whether his rivals can pull down his support to such a threshold remains to be seen. The leading Democrat in the race, Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, is considered a long shot in a district that Mr. Trump won by 10 percentage points.Chelsea Walsh, a life insurance agent who volunteered for Mr. Cawthorn in 2020 but said she is open to other candidates now, predicted a runoff between Mr. Cawthorn and Mr. Edwards.“If I had to pick, I would say Madison is still the front-runner,’’ she said. “But he has his work cut out for him.”Annie Karni More

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      Mark Meadows’s 2020 Vote Is Under Investigation in North Carolina

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      Records show that Mr. Meadows cast an absentee ballot from the address of a remote mobile home, but reports have cast doubt on whether he lived there.North Carolina officials said on Thursday that they planned to investigate whether Mark Meadows, who as former President Donald J. Trump’s chief of staff helped amplify false claims of voter fraud in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, cast a legal vote in that year’s presidential race.The North Carolina Department of Justice has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to examine whether Mr. Meadows broke the law when he registered to vote, and voted from, a remote mobile home where he did not live, said Nazneen Ahmed, a spokeswoman for Josh Stein, the state attorney general, who is a Democrat.“We have asked the S.B.I. to investigate and at the conclusion of the investigation, we’ll review their findings,” Ms. Ahmed said.Law enforcement officials in Macon County, a rural community in the mountains of western North Carolina, first became aware of questions surrounding Mr. Meadows’s voter registration last week after The New Yorker revealed that he had voted from a home where he did not live, the local district attorney, Ashley Welch, wrote in a letter to the state Justice Department.“Until being contacted by the media, I was unaware of any allegations of voter fraud surrounding Mark Meadows,” she wrote.Mr. Meadows did not respond to messages Thursday evening. He has not yet offered any public explanation for his 2020 voter registration.The letter and the state investigation were first reported on Thursday by WRAL, a television station in Raleigh, N.C.North Carolina voter registration records show that Mr. Meadows and his wife, Debra, registered to vote at a three-bedroom mobile home in Scaly Mountain, N.C., six weeks before the 2020 election. He voted absentee by mail from that address, according to the state records.The former owner of the Scaly Mountain home told The New Yorker that she did not believe Mr. Meadows had ever visited the residence. A neighbor told the magazine Ms. Meadows had stayed there only one or two nights.Before he registered to vote at the Scaly Mountain home, Mr. Meadows had voted in 2018 from a home in Transylvania County, N.C., and in 2016 from Asheville, N.C., according to North Carolina records.In 2021, he also registered to vote in Virginia, where he and his wife own a condominium in the Washington suburbs, ahead of that state’s contentious election for governor.In her letter, Ms. Welch asked state officials to investigate Mr. Meadows because she had a conflict of interest. Mr. Meadows, Ms. Welch said, contributed to her 2014 campaign and appeared in political advertisements for her. At the time, Mr. Meadows was a member of Congress representing eastern North Carolina.“It is in the best interest of justice and the best interest of the people of North Carolina that the Attorney General’s office handles the prosecution of this case,” Ms. Welch wrote. More

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      The Supreme Court Did the Right Thing. I’m Still Worried.

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      State legislatures are, and always have been, creatures of state constitutions, bound by the terms of those constitutions and subject to the judgments of state courts.This has important implications for the nature of state legislative power. The federal Constitution may give state legislatures the power to allocate electoral votes and regulate congressional elections, but that power is subject to the limits imposed by state constitutions.Imagine what could happen if that were not the case. Imagine, instead, that state legislatures had plenary power over federal elections, which would allow them to overrule state courts, ignore a governor’s veto and even nullify an act of Congress. State legislatures would, in essence, be sovereign, with unchecked power over the fundamental political rights of those citizens who lived within their borders.This change would both unravel and turn the clock back on our constitutional order, with states acting more like the quasi-independent entities they were before the Civil War and less as the subordinate units of a national polity.But that, apparently, is what some Republicans want.Recently, Republicans in North Carolina and Pennsylvania asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block congressional maps drawn by their state courts. Their argument was based on a revolutionary doctrine that would tee up this fundamental change to the American political system.The challenges, which failed, stemmed from the effort to gerrymander Democrats out of as much power as possible. In North Carolina, the proposed gerrymander was so egregious that the state Supreme Court ruled that it was in violation of the state’s constitution. The court drew a new map to rectify the problem. In Pennsylvania, likewise, state courts drew a new congressional map after Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, vetoed the heavily gerrymandered map produced by the Republican-led legislature.The North Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling and the Pennsylvania governor’s veto should have been the last word. Both were acting in accordance with their state constitutions, which bind and structure the actions of the state legislatures in question. For Republicans, however, those checks on their power are illegitimate. Their argument, in brief, is that neither state courts nor elected executives have the right to interfere with or challenge the power of state legislatures as it relates to the regulation of federal elections.Nestled at the heart of the Republican argument is a breathtaking claim about the nature of state legislative power. Called the “independent state legislature” doctrine, it holds that Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution — which states that “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators” — gives state legislatures total power to write rules for congressional elections and direct the appointment of presidential electors, unbound by state constitutions and free from the scrutiny of state courts.This isn’t a new theory, exactly. In his concurring opinion in Bush v. Gore in 2000 — joined by justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued that under Article II, any “significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question.” Meaning, in short, that a state court could go beyond its authority in adjudicating state election law. The other two Republican-appointed justices on the court, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor, declined to join Rehnquist’s concurrence, even as they voted to stop the counting and give George W. Bush the win.For 20 years, the doctrine lay dormant. It was resurrected, in 2020, by allies of Donald Trump, who needed some constitutional pretense for their attempt to overturn his defeat. Before the election, a number of state courts had ordered state governments to make accommodations for the pandemic, citing state constitutions. Elsewhere, governors, secretaries of state and state boards of election took matters into their own hands, bypassing the legislature (and using their own authority under the law) to accommodate voters. When, after the election, the Trump campaign sued either to throw out ballots or to invalidate results, its lawyers offered the “independent state legislature” doctrine as justification. So too did supporters of Trump who wanted Republican legislatures to void election results and choose electors who would give the president a second term.The basic problem with this doctrine is that it’s bunk. “The text of the Elections and Electors clauses is silent as to the role of state constitutions, but the subsequent history is anything but,” the legal scholar Michael Weingartner writes in a draft article on the theory of independent state legislatures. “Since the Founding, state constitutions have both directly regulated federal elections and constrained state legislatures’ exercise of their authority under the Clauses.” What’s more, over the past century, “nearly every election-related state constitutional provision was either approved and presented to voters by state legislatures or placed on the ballot and enacted by voters directly.” Even if the federal Constitution is vague on the full scope of state legislative power to regulate elections, both history and practice have fixed the meaning of the relevant clauses in favor of constraint. State constitutions (and state courts) do in fact regulate state legislatures as it relates to election law.Some proponents of the “independent state legislature” doctrine argue that theirs represents the original understanding of the Elections and Electors clauses in the Constitution. Another researcher, Hayward H. Smith, says otherwise. “The history demonstrates beyond cavil that the founding generation understood that ‘legislatures’ would operate as normal legislatures, not independent legislatures, with respect to both procedure and substance,” he writes. In fact, he notes, a review of every state constitution adopted in the 19th century reveals “that both explicit and nonexplicit limitations on ‘legislatures’ were widespread before, during, and after the Civil War.”There’s simply no basis for the claim that the Constitution grants state legislatures this kind of unaccountable power over the conduct of federal elections. It runs counter to the basic idea behind the American political system, that is, the sharing and separation of power among competing and overlapping institutions. It defeats the purpose of this delicate balance to give state legislatures plenary power over federal elections (to say nothing of how it is incongruent with the elite frustration over the scope of states’ power that gave rise to the Constitution in the first place).Thankfully, the Supreme Court rejected the challenge from Republicans in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Still, there may be four votes for the theory of the “independent state legislature.” In a 2020 dissent from the majority on the question of whether Pennsylvania should count certain mail-in ballots, Justices Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh appeared sympathetic to the doctrine. Neil Gorsuch endorsed it outright, writing that “The Constitution provides that state legislatures — not federal judges, not state judges, not state governors, not other state officials — bear primary responsibility for setting election rules.”Dissenting from the court’s decision in the North Carolina case, Alito called the question of state legislative power an issue of “great national importance,” a clear signal that he is open to the arguments of Republican legislators. Kavanaugh concurred. “I agree with Justice Alito that the underlying Elections Clause question raised in the emergency application is important, and that both sides have advanced serious arguments on the merits. The issue is almost certain to keep arising until the Court definitively resolves it.”It is unclear where the newest justice, the Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett, stands on the doctrine, although she appears to have voted with the majority in these particular cases.It is a good thing that the Supreme Court has decided not to throw out more than 230 years of precedent and practice for the sake of a bizarre and anti-democratic reading of the Constitution. But previous Supreme Courts have endorsed bizarre and anti-democratic readings of the Constitution — the Constitution itself has an uneasy relationship with American democracy — and this court, especially, has been more hostile than friendly to the more expansive view of our democratic rights.We can breathe a sigh of relief, for now, but when it comes to the future of the “independent state legislature” doctrine, the worst may still be on the horizon.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Mark Meadows Spread Trump’s Voter Fraud Claims. Now His Voting Record Is Under Scrutiny.

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      The former Trump aide listed a mobile home in rural North Carolina as his residence at the same time that he was running operations at the White House.Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff who helped former President Donald J. Trump spread false claims of voter fraud in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, is facing questions about his own voting record, following a report that he registered to vote from a North Carolina mobile home where he did not live.There’s no indication that Mr. Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina, ever resided — or even spent the night — at the rural mountain home, according to The New Yorker, which first reported on the residence that Mr. Meadows listed on his 2020 voter registration.While it’s not unusual for politicians to maintain residency in their home states, even as they spend most of their time in Washington, Mr. Meadows’s arrangement stood out for its timing and details. Mr. Meadows claimed the modest mobile home with a rusted roof as his residence at the same time that he was running day-to-day operations at the White House and was frequently warning of the possibility of voter fraud.Neither Mr. Meadows nor his wife, Debra, responded to calls or messages Tuesday. Mr. Meadows’s spokesman, Ben Williamson, also did not respond to calls or messages.North Carolina voter registration records show that Mr. Meadows and his wife registered to vote at the three-bedroom mobile home in Scaly Mountain, N.C., six weeks before the 2020 election. Records show that he voted absentee by mail from that address and that Ms. Meadows voted early, in person.Mr. Meadows’s exact connection to the home is unclear. He never owned it. On a voter registration application submitted on Sept. 19, 2020, Mr. Meadows stated that he intended to move in the following day.North Carolina law requires that a voter live at their address for 30 days before the election in which they are voting. It is a felony to file a fraudulent voter registration application, though prosecutions are rare and typically do not lead to jail sentences.Only a registered voter from Macon County, which includes Scaly Mountain along the Georgia border, can file a challenge to Mr. Meadows’s voter registration. Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the North Carolina Board of Elections, said Tuesday that there have been no voter challenges filed against Mr. Meadows.Before and after the 2020 election, Mr. Meadows was among the foremost amplifiers of Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud. During an August 2020 interview on CNN, he warned of fraud in voting by mail and said people are able to register to vote in multiple places at once, leading to fraud.“Anytime you move, you’ll change your driver’s license, but you don’t call up and say, ‘Hey, by the way, I’m re-registering,’” Mr. Meadows said.Voters are not required to notify a state’s election officials about a move. Mr. Meadows, in fact, is currently registered in both North Carolina and Virginia.Virginia voter registration forms obtained by The New York Times show that nearly a year after registering at the mountain mobile home, on Sept. 13 and Sept. 15, 2021, Mr. Meadows and Ms. Meadows registered to vote at a condominium in the Old Town neighborhood of suburban Alexandria, Va. Property records show that Mr. and Ms. Meadows purchased the unit in July 2017.Both Mr. Meadows and Ms. Meadows voted early in person in Virginia’s heated election for governor in 2021, Virginia election records show. In that contest, Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican elected governor of Virginia in 12 years.In the weeks after the 2020 election, Mr. Meadows served as a revolving door between Mr. Trump and an array of lawyers, supporters and conspiracy theorists who aimed to overturn the election results to keep Mr. Trump in the White House. He introduced Mr. Trump to Mark Martin, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice who told the then-president, falsely, that Vice President Mike Pence could stop the congressional certification of the Electoral College results.In January 2021, Mr. Meadows facilitated the call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump asked Mr. Raffensperger to “to find 11,780 votes” to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state.During Mr. Trump’s presidency, several members of his White House inner circle, including Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and Steve Bannon, an on-again-off-again adviser, were registered to vote in two states. There was no evidence that any of them voted twice in the same election.At the time he registered to vote in Scaly Mountain, Mr. Meadows was said to be considering running for the Senate seat to be vacated after the 2022 election by Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. Shortly after the 2020 election, Mr. Meadows said he would not run for the Senate.The owner of the home when Mr. Meadows registered there told The New Yorker that Ms. Meadows reserved it for two months sometime in the past few years, but stayed at the home for just one or two nights. Mr. Meadows never visited, the former homeowner, who asked that her name not be used, told the magazine.The former homeowner did not respond to messages. The current owner, who bought the property in 2021, also did not respond to messages.A neighbor, Tammy Talley, told the magazine that she is a friend of the couple’s and that Ms. Meadows and her adult children stayed at the home on at least one occasion. A message left at Ms. Talley’s home was not returned Tuesday.Two weeks after Mr. Meadows registered to vote at the Scaly Mountain address, his wife submitted an absentee ballot request on his behalf. Mr. Meadows’s absentee ballot request was first reported by WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C.Before he registered to vote at the Scaly Mountain home, Mr. Meadows had voted in 2018 from a home in Transylvania County, N.C., and in 2016 from Asheville, N.C., according to North Carolina records.Kitty Bennett More

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      Supreme Court Allows Court-Imposed Voting Maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania

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      State courts had ruled that earlier maps for congressional elections had been warped by partisan gerrymandering. Democrats stand to benefit from the justices’ decision.The Supreme Court on Monday allowed congressional maps that had been approved by state courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to stand, giving Democrats an advantage in this year’s election in two key states.In issuing the orders, the Supreme Court rejected requests by Republicans to restore maps approved by G.O.P.-controlled state legislatures. Those district lines were thrown out and replaced by courts in both states after challenges by Democrats.Under the new court-imposed maps in both states, Democrats are likely to gain more seats than they would have under the legislature-approved versions.But in the North Carolina case, there were signs that at least four of the court’s more conservative justices could later rule that state courts are powerless to change congressional maps adopted by state legislatures.Such a ruling would fundamentally alter how congressional elections are conducted and amplify partisan gerrymandering, allowing the party that controls the legislature to draw voting districts favoring its candidates.But that will not happen before this fall’s election.Stanton Jones, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs who had challenged the North Carolina map, said the Supreme Court’s order meant that “North Carolina voters will now be able to vote in free and fair congressional elections this year.”He said that for now, the order signaled an end to “a decade of extreme Republican gerrymanders.”Still, the court’s three most conservative members — Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — said they would have blocked the North Carolina map because it was likely that the State Supreme Court had violated the Constitution in overriding the State Legislature.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: The U.S. Supreme Court let stand voting maps that had been approved by state courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, giving Democrats a temporary win.“There must be some limit on the authority of state courts to countermand actions taken by state legislatures when they are prescribing rules for the conduct of federal elections,” Justice Alito wrote.Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh filed a short concurring opinion agreeing that the question posed by the case was a substantial one. But he said the court should address it in the ordinary course rather than in response to an emergency application.Taken together, the two opinions suggested that there are four justices ready to add a case on the question to the court’s docket when it is next presented in a petition seeking the court’s review rather than on what critics call the court’s shadow docket. It takes four votes to grant such review.But it takes five votes to prevail. The swing vote would almost certainly belong to Justice Amy Coney Barrett.In a second order in the Pennsylvania case, the court provisionally turned down a similar application on technical grounds without noted dissent.The North Carolina Supreme Court had rejected a map drawn by Republican lawmakers that effectively gave their party at least 10 of the state’s 14 House seats, notwithstanding that voters statewide are roughly equally divided between the two parties.A three-judge panel of the state Superior Court in Raleigh instead adopted a new map drawn by a nonpartisan panel of redistricting experts that appeared to split North Carolina’s congressional districts roughly equally between Republicans and Democrats. It gave each party six relatively safe House seats and made the other two competitive.After the State Supreme Court refused to block that ruling, Republican state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.In the Pennsylvania case, the State Supreme Court adopted a map that appears to give Republicans nine fairly safe seats and Democrats eight, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. Each party currently holds nine House seats, but Pennsylvania will lose a seat next year because of reapportionment after the 2020 census.Voters and a Republican candidate for the House sued state officials in federal court to challenge the new map. When they did not receive immediate relief, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.Both emergency applications relied on the Elections Clause of the Constitution, which says “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.” That meant, the challengers argued, that the state legislature has sole responsibility for drawing congressional districts and that state courts have no role to play.“The question presented here,” North Carolina Republicans wrote in their application, “goes to the very core of this nation’s democratic republic: what entity has the constitutional authority to set the rules of the road for federal elections.”How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      North Carolina Court Rejects Republican Gerrymander of Maps

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      The State Supreme Court said maps of the state’s 14 House districts and state legislative districts violated guarantees of free elections, speech and assembly.The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday upended Republican efforts to lock in political dominance in the state, saying that congressional and state legislative maps were partisan gerrymanders that violated the State Constitution.The ruling requires the Republican-controlled legislature not only to submit new maps to the court, but to offer a range of statistical analyses to show “a significant likelihood that the districting plan will give the voters of all political parties substantially equal opportunity to translate votes into seats” in elections.The requirement rebuffed the argument against redrawing the maps that the legislature offered in oral arguments before the court this week: that the court had no right to say whether and when political maps cross the line from acceptable partisanship into unfairness.The justices’ 4-3 decision, split along party lines, not only sets a precedent for judging the legality of future maps in the state, but could play an important role in the struggle for control of the House of Representatives in elections this November. The Republican-drawn maps had effectively allotted the party control of at least 10 of the 14 House seats the state will have in the next Congress, even though voters statewide are roughly equally divided between the two parties.It was a challenge to earlier partisan maps in North Carolina and Maryland that led the U.S. Supreme Court to end decades of federal debate over the constitutionality of partisan gerrymanders, ruling in 2019 that they were political issues beyond its jurisdiction. The justices said then that Congress and state courts should rule on the question, and lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case said on Friday that the new ruling carried out that mandate to the letter.Understand Redistricting and GerrymanderingRedistricting, Explained: Answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Texas: Republicans want to make Texas even redder. Here are four ways their proposed maps further gerrymandered the state’s House districts.“The U.S. Supreme Court said it’s up to state courts to rein in partisan gerrymandering, and that’s exactly what the North Carolina Supreme Court has done,” said Elisabeth Theodore of the law firm Arnold & Porter. “The court’s direction is clear: The General Assembly must stop cheating and draw fair new maps so that North Carolinians can have a fair say in who governs them.”But one longtime scholar of the state’s politics, Michael Bitzer of Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., said the Republican legislature could take the case yet again to the U.S. Supreme Court.Citing their brief in the state case, he said the legislators might argue that the state court’s decision violates the provision in the U.S. Constitution that gives Congress the ultimate right to decide the “times, places and manner” of elections.The decision comes as both federal and state courts have lately proved a bulwark against some excessive gerrymanders. A state court in Ohio rejected maps drawn by Republicans in the state legislature last month as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders, and a federal court in Alabama ruled last month that Republicans had to redraw their congressional map to create a second district that gave minorities a fair shot at electing their preferred candidate.The legal decisions have been a boon for Democrats, who started the latest redistricting cycle at a significant disadvantage. Republicans controlled the map-drawing process in 187 congressional districts, while Democrats were able to draw 75 districts.The court decisions in North Carolina, Ohio and Alabama all forced Republicans back to the drawing table and are likely to result in either more competitive seats or opportunities for Democrats in the midterm elections.The 2019 Supreme Court decision on partisan gerrymandering has led opponents of partisan maps to take their arguments from federal courts to the state benches, where constitutions often give more legal protections to voters. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court gave them an important victory in 2018, striking down Republican-drawn maps that the justices said violated the State Constitution.In the North Carolina case, a lower court said last month that even though the state and congressional maps were extreme partisan gerrymanders by any measure, the State Constitution nevertheless did not outlaw them.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More