Bladen County, N.C.
Election questions: North Carolina’s bipartisan Board of Elections twice refused last week to certify the victory of Republican House candidate Mark Harris, citing “concerted fraudulent activities” with mail-in absentee ballots. After defeating the GOP incumbent in the state’s 9th district, which stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville along the border with South Carolina, Harris appeared to best Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. But irregularities immediately stood out: In seven of the district’s eight counties, for example, McCready won a lopsided majority of mailed-in absentee votes. Yet in Bladen County, where only 19 percent of voters are registered Republicans, Harris won 61 percent of that vote. Bladen residents say people arrived at their homes illegally offering to deliver their absentee ballots, a felony. The Harris campaign had hired convicted felon Leslie McRae Dowless for get-out-the-vote efforts in the county.