N.C.: GOP figure ran ballot scheme
Illegal harvesting operation allegedly done in two rural counties
RALEIGH, N.C — A Republican operative who last year rounded up votes for a GOP candidate running for Congress conducted an illegal and well-funded ballot-harvesting operation, North Carolina’s elections director said Monday.
The director’s testimony came on the first day of a hearing into whether mail-in ballots had been tampered with in a race for the state’s 9th Congressional District seat that saw Republican Mark Harris narrowly defeat Democrat Dan Mccready.
The race wasn’t certified, leaving the country’s only undecided congressional election. The elections board is expected to either declare a winner or order a new election after the hearing.
“The evidence that we will provide today will show that a coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme operated in the 2018 general election” in rural Bladen and Robeson counties, which are part of the 9th District, state elections director Kim Strach said.
Harris held a slim lead over Mccready in unofficial results following November’s election, but the state elections board refused to certify the contest after allegations of potential ballot manipulation surfaced.
An investigation targeted a political operative working for Harris’ campaign named Leslie Mccrae Dowless Jr. He paid local people he recruited $125 for every 50 mail-in ballots they collected in Bladen and Robeson counties and turned in to him, Strach said. That means they could have been altered before being counted.
Dowless was hired to produce votes for Harris and Bladen County Sheriff Jim Mcvickers, but his methods last year included paying people to visit potential voters who had received absentee ballots and getting them to hand over those ballots, whether completed or not, Dowless worker Lisa Britt testified.
It’s illegal in North Carolina for anyone other than a guardian or close family member to handle a voter’s ballot.
Britt testified she sometimes completed unfinished ballots and handed them to Dowless, who kept them at his home and office for days or longer before they were turned in.
While Dowless and Harris’ main campaign consultant were in constant contact, she didn’t have any indication Harris knew about the operation, Britt said.
“I think Mr. Harris was completely clueless as to what was going on,” Britt said.
Harris received 679 mail-in votes in Bladen and Robeson counties, compared with 652 for Mccready, Strach said. But Mccready’s lawyers contend that nearly 1,200 other mail-in ballots were sent to voters and never returned, enough to erase Harris’ 905-vote lead after Election Day.
“It’s not just about those that have been returned. It’s potentially about those that haven’t been returned,” Strach said.