After fear mongering for years about voter fraud, Fox News has suddenly gone virtually TV silent now that authorities seem to have uncovered a real case of election fraud. Coincidentally, the likely culprit is a Republican.
Ever since the beginning of this blog, in 2004, and continuing with the 2018 midterms, we have documented Fox News’ obsession with voter fraud, despite its extreme rarity. So you’d think the network would be all over the suspicious results of a North Carolina midterm election for a seat in the House of Representatives. The results were questionable enough that the North Carolina State Board of Elections has refused to certify the vote. From The New York Times:
State regulators have refused to certify the preliminary results, which showed the Republican nominee, Mark Harris, with a 905-vote edge over Dan McCready, his Democratic opponent. If state officials ultimately find that the balloting was tainted enough to “cast doubt” on the results, they would have the power to order a new election.
[…]
North Carolina elections regulators are poised to hold an evidentiary hearing this month. Investigators have already begun questioning witnesses about what Joshua Malcolm, who was named on Monday as the election board’s chairman, described last week as “claims of numerous irregularities and concerted fraudulent activities” with regard to absentee ballots in rural parts of the district.
In other words, those “numerous irregularities and concerted fraudulent activities,” if proven, were committed by or on behalf of Republican Harris.
You probably will not be shocked to learn that, just like it has done with the two times that Ann Coulter skated away from very credible evidence that she committed voter fraud, Fox News has all but turned its back on this bigger, more important case. From a Media Matters report yesterday:
Fox has mentioned the allegations only once on air since the state election board announced it was investigating the results on November 27. Host Bret Baier spent less than 30 seconds discussing the story on Fox’s Special Report, but he did note that the state election board voted “to hear evidence on alleged absentee ballot irregularities.” Fox also posted one article about the story and one associated video on FoxNews.com.
In contrast, Media Matters hailed this reporting by Charlotte's WSOC. Watch their December 3, 2018 report below, via Media Matters.