“He had stacks” of absentee ballots “on his desk.”
A North Carolina district attorney says he is “deeply troubled” by what appears to be possible election fraud that’s been taking place in the U.S. House District 9 race. A GOP operative is being accused of paying people to collect absentee ballots that may have swung the election for Republican Mark Harris.
“I am deeply troubled by recent reports of alleged voter fraud in Bladen County,” says D.A. Jon David.
But he also acknowledges there were allegations in 2016 and an investigation was begun, which apparently is still ongoing. That investigation is being conducted in a different county, David says.
Leslie McCrae Dowless, an independent contractor who worked for the Harris campaign, has been named as central to the possible absentee ballot fraud. Dowless “is a convicted felon who faced jail time for fraud and perjury,” The Charlotte-Observer reports.
Meanwhile, WSOC reporter Joe Bruno reports another woman has come forward to say she too was paid to collect absentee ballots, which is illegal.
“A second woman, Cheryl Kinlaw, tells me she was paid $100 by McCrae Dowless to pickup absentee ballots,” Bruno reports. “She said she never thought it was illegal because Dowless ‘has been doing it for years.’ She says needed extra money for Christmas presents.”
She “never mailed the ballots,” but “gave them to McCrae Dowless. She doesn’t know what he did with them afterward. She says she has no doubt Dowless wanted Mark Harris and Sheriff Jim McVicker to win.”
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“I don’t know what happened” to the ballots she collected, she says, adding, “he had stacks of them on his desk.”