When you’re attacking stuff YOU put into place, things are going badly for you.

Amy Galey was right:  Phil Berger will burn the whole thing down to save himself.

Two weeks after Sam Page‘s stunning upset win in the GOP primary for NC senate district 26, the results have not changed.  But Phil Berger‘s campaign is signaling they’re planning to spend every dime they can, and burn every possible bridge,  in order to keep the Raleigh gravy train running for so many of the beneficiaries of the Berger political machine.  Never mind the hit to the party’s campaign finances or morale. 

The handle-bar mustachioed Mitt Romney fanboy™ has been brought in to whip up hysterical suggestions that THE MOST POWEFUL MAN IN STATE POLITICS is the victim of political intimidation, distribution of wrong ballots and other assorted vote fraud.  (*Gosh, and here we were thinking Phil Berger‘s team had cornered the market on political intimidation.*) 

The drive-bys pounced on the Berger decision to ask for a recount.  That was a given to happen.  The race was close enough to qualify for one.  What could it hurt to ask?  Though, the probability of a recount changing anything is miniscule. 

The Page campaign responded to The Mustache’s laundry list of allegations:

[…]  The Page campaign has learned from multiple sources that the Phil Berger campaign is contacting voters to ask whether they received the correct ballot, and whether they would publicly claim they received the wrong ballot when they voted — specifically a ballot that did not include Berger’s name.

One concerned voter said the Berger campaign disclosed they are calling thousands of people in an effort to find individuals who will claim they received the wrong ballot.

At Least One Person Contacted Does Not Live In District 26

At least one of the people who contacted the Page campaign does not even live in Senate District 26, which can easily be confirmed by checking the North Carolina State Board of Elections voter file.

Procedures In Place To Assure Voters Receive The Correct Ballot

The Guilford County Board of Elections has careful measures in place to ensure voters are provided with the ballot that corresponds to their voting jurisdiction. After a voter checks in, their authorization to vote form identifies the ballot they are supposed to receive by a specific alphanumeric designation. The person retrieving the ballot must align the ballot they retrieve with that alphanumeric designation. They then use a barcode scanner to scan both the voter’s authorization to vote form and the ballot to confirm a match. If there is no match, the scanner alerts the poll worker.

Ballot Records Confirm Counts Match

Additionally, the county board has confirmed that the number of ballots that were supposed to have been issued in this contest at early voting sites matches the number of ballots that were cast in the contest. […]

Phil Berger May Be Unaware Of The District He Currently Represents

Phil Berger’s campaign has been telling voters they are calling people in Jamestown to ensure they received the correct ballot for District 26. As the Berger campaign should know, the small town of Jamestown is split between three state Senate districts. Naturally, many voters in Jamestown did not see Phil Berger on their ballot because they do not live in the 26th Senate District.

STATEMENT: “In a desperate attempt to cling to power after being rejected by voters, Phil Berger is questioning the very election system he put in place. Voters should never feel pressured by a defeated candidate to say something that isn’t true.”

Evoking comparisons to failed GOP Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin, the Berger campaign has also issued word that they will file a protest.  Lawyering up to fight this will drain resources from other GOP candidates for the General Assembly, further damage party morale in a key election year, and likely produce the same result Griffin’s protest did.

Here’s the Page campaign on the Berger pursuit of a protest:

Phil Berger has offered absolutely no basis to overturn this election.

He filed a protest claiming that 7 unidentified people in Guilford County got the wrong ballot in this election, and that 1 of these unidentified people heard that another unidentified person got the wrong ballot. That’s a total of 8 anonymous people who say they didn’t get the right ballot.

Next, he wants to throw out the ballots of 3 of his constituents in Rockingham County because they made an initial mistake when they checked in to vote in asking for a Democratic ballot, which they immediately corrected.

Finally, he claims that 2 other Rockingham County voters had problems processing their voter registrations by the deadline in the law that prevented them from voting in the primary.

The grand total for these paltry allegations is 13 voters. That’s not enough to change the results of this election, even if any of these allegations held up.

Despite not having sufficient grounds to challenge his election defeat, Berger claims to have sent some secret “complaint” to the State Board of Elections, hoping they’ll bail him out and overturn the will of the district’s voters.

We trust that our election officials will not take this bait and will affirm the will of the voters, not the will of one man.