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Before and after Election Day 2020, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows talked a lot about voting irregularities. Like so many members of Donald Trump’s team, the Republican was heavily invested in the demonstrably false idea that there was widespread fraud.
“Do you realize how inaccurate the voter rolls are, with people just moving around?” Meadows asked in August 2020? He later complained in his memoir about some people casting ballots despite not being “an actual resident of the state they were voting in.”
It was against this backdrop that the public recently learned that Meadows himself appears to have cast a ballot from North Carolina, despite having moved away from the state and no longer being an actual state resident. As The Associated Press reported, state investigators have begun examining the controversy.
Attorney General Josh Stein’s office asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into Meadows’ voter registration after a local prosecutor requested that state authorities oversee any probe of the matter, N.C. Department of Justice spokeswoman Nazneen Ahmed said in an email.
The local district attorney referred the matter to the state attorney general’s office because of a recusal: Meadows contributed to Macon County District Attorney Ashley Welch’s campaign and appeared in her campaign advertisements.
Based solely on publicly available information, it appears Meadows is facing questions that might be difficult to answer. As we discussed last week, Meadows and his wife owned a home in North Carolina, where the Republican was previously elected to Congress, but he sold his house in March 2020, and lived in a condo near Washington, D.C.
That wouldn’t be especially notable — it’s common for political insiders to move to the D.C. area — except Meadows continued to vote from North Carolina.
In fact, in September 2020, Meadows submitted a voter registration form that used the address of a rented mobile home. The official materials directed Meadows to include the residential address where he “physically” lived, and sign the document “under penalty of perjury.”
There’s reason to believe, however, that Meadows did not actually live in the rented mobile home. According to the former White House chief of staff’s former landlord, Meadows never even spent the night there. It’s an open question as to whether he even ever stepped foot in the dwelling.
The new owner of the property told The New Yorker magazine, which published the original scoop, that it’s “really weird“ that Meadows listed the mobile home as his residence.
Nevertheless, the Republican used that address to cast an absentee ballot, through the mail, for the 2020 general election.
When WRAL in Raleigh first reported on the story, the local NBC affiliate added, “The revelation has raised questions about potential voter fraud and could prompt state and local officials to investigate.”
That investigation, evidently, is now underway.
As best as I can tell, Meadows has not responded publicly to any questions regarding the allegations.