Over a thousand absentee ballots from likely Democratic voters may have been destroyed in the race for North Carolina's 9th Congressional District last month as allegations of fraud on behalf of the Republican candidate mount.
“You’re looking at several thousand, possibly 2,000 absentee ballot requests from this most recent election. About 40 percent of those, it appears, at this point may not have been returned,” Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told CNN.
The report comes after Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the vice ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called for an emergency hearing regarding allegations of voter fraud.
Several voters have come forward since Election Day with claims that their uncompleted absentee ballots were illegally collected, and it remains unclear if their votes were counted. One woman on Monday claimed to have been paid by a Republican operative to collect ballots.