Freedom Caucus chair says he was taken out of context on legislature deciding presidential electors

The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus said Friday that news reports quoting him as saying the North Carolina legislature could allocate the state’s presidential electors to Donald Trump before the votes are counted were based on a conversation that was “taken out of context.”

The comments from Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland had been made at a Republican Party dinner in an exchange with a pro-Trump activist who had given the keynote address. The activist suggested that legislatures in several states, including North Carolina, could convene on Election Day and allocate their state’s electors to Trump. The comments from the Thursday dinner in Maryland were first reported by Politico.

Harris, speaking after the speech, referenced the counties in western North Carolina that had sustained major damage from Hurricane Helene. In reaction to the activist’s proposal, he said, “for North Carolina, that makes a lot of sense,” according to a video.

“I mean, you statistically can go and say: ’Hey, look, you’ve got disenfranchised in 25 counties. You know what that vote probably would have been, which would be, if I were in the legislature, enough to go: Yeah, we’ve got to convene the legislature, and we can’t disenfranchise the voters. But how do you make the argument in other states? I mean, otherwise, it looks like it’s just a power play,” Harris said.

“With North Carolina, I mean, it’s legitimate. I mean, there are a lot of people who aren’t going to get to vote, and it may make the difference in that state,” he said.

Such a maneuver doesn’t appear to be possible under current North Carolina law.

The state’s law on awarding presidential electors limits the General Assembly’s role to extenuating circumstances after an election if other steps in the process aren’t met. Any attempt by a legislature to subvert the will of the voters and promote an alternate slate of electors also appears to run afoul of the Electoral Count Act, passed by Congress after Trump attempted to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election.

The offices of North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, both Republicans, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Harris issued a statement Friday after his comments from the dinner drew widespread attention.

“Yesterday’s theoretical conversation has been taken out of context,” he said in a statement. “As I’ve repeatedly said, every legal vote should be counted.”

He also said “voting is going well in western North Carolina.”

There has been bipartisan agreement on the steps needed to improve voting access in the counties affected by Helene. The North Carolina State Board of Elections — made up of both Democratic and Republican members — unanimously approved a resolution earlier this month expanding opportunities for absentee ballot pickup and giving local boards more flexibility.

The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed legislation to expand those changes to the 25 affected counties. State lawmakers also passed a bill on Thursday that requires 13 mountain counties to have at least one early, in-person voting site for every 30,000 registered voters as soon as possible.

Early voting throughout the state, including in the areas hit hard by the hurricane, has been robust. The state elections board has repeatedly praised the efforts of local election workers to ensure that all voters are able to cast their ballots.

Asked for her reaction to Harris’ comments, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said, “America deserves to have leaders who respect the importance of one of the pillars and foundations of our democracy, which is free and fair elections, and that they are not manipulated by elected leaders for the sake of their own political future or their own political strategy for how they themselves want to succeed.

“This has to be about what’s in the best interest of the American people.”

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Associated Press writers Gary Robertson and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

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