# Mark Meadows? Voter Fraud? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 13, 2022, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781 "2022-04-13T17:33:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/1 "2022-04-13T17:33:11Z")
No way a Trump administration official could have done something like this! Well, maybe, since he was removed from the North Carolina voter rolls this week under allegations that he registered to vote using an address where he never lived… ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/2 "2022-04-13T17:35:07Z")
@MikeF: providing a link to a news story about your topic is always a good idea. Like so: > **[Ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows booted from North Carolina voter rolls...](https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-chief-mark-meadows-removed-north-carolina-voter-rolls-2022-4)** > > The former North Carolina congressman "lived in Virginia and last voted in the 2021 election there" said a spokesman for the state elections board. From the article: > [@](#): > > Mark Meadows, the former North Carolina congressman and chief of staff to President Donald Trump, was removed from North Carolina’s voter rolls on Monday by local election officials amid uncertainty about his residency in the state, [North Carolina news outlet WRAL first reported](https://www.wral.com/former-nc-congressman-chief-of-staff-to-trump-removed-from-state-voter-rolls/20234236/). > > Democratic State Attorney General Josh Stein launched an [investigation](https://www.wral.com/state-investigators-asked-to-probe-meadows-voter-registration/20192167/) into [Meadows’ voter registration](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/us/politics/mark-meadows-trump-vote-north-carolina.html) following reports that Meadows was [registered to vote in 2020 from a mobile home](https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-meadows-registered-vote-2020-not-place-of-residence-report-2022-3) in Scaly Mountain. Meadows [didn’t live at the mobile home](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-did-mark-meadows-register-to-vote-at-an-address-where-he-did-not-reside). ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/3 "2022-04-13T17:36:30Z")
Duly noted… ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/4 "2022-04-13T21:00:15Z")
Unless this was a fancy motor home then, given that it’s in “Scaly Mountain” and there isn’t any report of a vote being cast under his name in the state, I have a feeling like this might have been a prank by someone who was able to succesfully get on the voter roll as him but thought they could go in and vote as Meadows, as well, just to discover that they couldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/5 "2022-04-13T21:06:01Z")
And the whole serving in Congress representing North Carolina was probably also just a prank, right? ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/6 "2022-04-13T22:01:24Z")
Wait … a Democratic AG launched the investigation? Witchhunt! ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/7 "2022-04-13T22:19:25Z")
Nonsense! There are no witches in North Carolina! ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/8 "2022-04-14T00:54:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And the whole serving in Congress representing North Carolina was probably also just a prank, right? It’s as good an explanation as any, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/9 "2022-04-14T02:26:39Z")
This seems to do a pretty thorough deep dive on the topic: > **[Why Did Mark Meadows Register to Vote at an Address Where He Did Not Reside?](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-did-mark-meadows-register-to-vote-at-an-address-where-he-did-not-reside)** > > In September, 2020, Donald Trump’s then chief of staff claimed to live in a mobile home in North Carolina. The short answer would seem to be that he had sold his old place, hadn’t bought his new place yet, and that was where his family was staying at the time, so he considered it as close to an official address as he could have had at the time. (I would guess that he was living in a hotel somewhere in DC.) Not a prank, but it does seem like the gods are teasing when they put the guy in Scaly Mountain and he owns property in Transylvania County. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/10 "2022-04-14T02:54:40Z")
Surely, even he”s not dumb enough to think that a single vote in another state would make any difference at all. Now, if we find a few thousand more Meadows addresses, then we have a story. I hear property taxes are a bitch with that strategy, though. 😆 ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/11 "2022-04-14T11:04:13Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The short answer would seem to be that he had sold his old place, hadn’t bought his new place yet, and that was where his family was staying at the time, so he considered it as close to an official address as he could have had at the time. (I would guess that he was living in a hotel somewhere in DC.) The article says his wife stayed there for a night. It wasn’t temporary housing while they looked for a new place. They had effectively sold their home and moved to DC/NOVA. They weren’t between houses in NC. This is truly bizarre. ---
**Author:** ![SingleMalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/singlemalt/32/3961_2.png) [@SingleMalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleMalt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/12 "2022-04-14T14:09:17Z")
North Carolina says that Meadows voted in the 2021 Virginia elections, which results in automatic removal from the NC rolls per state law. If he’s claiming to be a NC resident, explaining the Virginia vote could be tricky. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/13 "2022-04-14T14:38:28Z")
Never mind ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/14 "2022-04-14T16:08:35Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > The article says his wife stayed there for a night. It wasn’t temporary housing while they looked for a new place. If that night happens to be the day that the thing was sent then it seems fair enough, at that moment. If you’re between homes and living separate from your family, and the question is your current address - I’m not sure that there’s really any satisfactory answer to give. I’ve had to give my hotel as an address at times in my life history. I wasn’t in desperate times or anything, it was just a strange moment and I had a form to fill out. Things happen. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/15 "2022-04-14T16:34:44Z")
But registering to vote isn’t a thing you can only do on April 20th. He was in the process of moving to NoVa. He should have registered there. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/16 "2022-04-14T17:14:02Z")
When you’re busy and have other things to focus on, don’t want to forget to do it, you’re following the law, and you _might be_ registering for the eventually correct location…why not? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/17 "2022-04-14T17:28:09Z")
Seriously? He lived in a different state at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/18 "2022-04-14T17:30:27Z")
How about we extend the same charity and forgiveness to everyone? No? Better to pass 10,000 laws across the nation. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/19 "2022-04-14T17:32:11Z")
A little more detail on what appears to have happened, from this NBC News article: > [@](#): > > State records indicate that Meadows voted by absentee ballot in North Carolina in the 2020 general election after having registered in September at an address in Macon County. He was Trump’s chief of staff at the time. > > “No formal challenge has been received by the Macon County Board of Elections,” Gannon said. > > The New Yorker [reported](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-did-mark-meadows-register-to-vote-at-an-address-where-he-did-not-reside) that Meadows registered at a “mobile home” in Scaly Mountain, which the former owner said Meadows’ wife, Debbie Meadows, had rented and briefly visited. The magazine reported that neighbors and friends of the Meadows family said they had never visited and that the home was sold to Ken Abele, a retail manager at Lowe’s, before Meadows registered to vote there. If accurate, then it appears that Meadows used that Scaly Mountain address as part of registering to vote in North Carolina, and that, by the time he registered to vote, the property had been sold to someone other than the person from whom they had rented it. It does seem like he (and/or his wife) briefly rented the property as a fig leaf to vote in NC in 2020. This’d be a tempest in a teapot, save for the fact that, as also noted in the article: > [@](#): > > News reports this year questioned whether Meadows, who has repeatedly and falsely claimed that widespread voter fraud occurred in the 2020 election, may have committed an election offense himself. Even if there is an innocent and legitimate explanation for all of this, the story broke 24 hours ago, and, AFAICT, Meadows has remained silent on it. > **[Former Trump aide Mark Meadows removed from North Carolina voter roll](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/former-trump-aide-mark-meadows-removed-north-carolina-voter-roll-rcna24245)** > > The attorney general's office asked state investigators to look into Meadows' voter registration last month. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781/20 "2022-04-14T18:00:48Z")
I think he should get the treatment of this Texas woman (five year sentence for a vote that was never even counted): > **[Texas woman sentenced to five years for trying to vote gets new appeal](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/texas-woman-sentenced-five-years-trying-vote-gets-new-appeal-n1262691)** > > Crystal Mason says she did not know she was ineligible, and with a poll worker's help cast a provisional ballot, which ultimately was never counted. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mark-meadows-voter-fraud/962781.md?page=2)