absentee

Republican campaign paid for 'coordinated, unlawful' absentee ballot scheme in NC 9th District election, investigators said

RALEIGH --

The hearing for potential election fraud in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District is entering day two.

On Monday, investigators suggested an illegal ballot-harvesting operation favoring a Republican congressional candidate took place in 2018.

During the hearing, investigators said Leslie McCrae Dowless paid workers to collect absentee request forms, to falsify absentee ballot witness certifications, and to collect absentee ballots.

See a summary of Monday's hearing below.

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The political operative behind what North Carolina's elections director describes as an illegal ballot-harvesting operation favoring a Republican congressional candidate won't testify about his actions without legal immunity.

Leslie McCrae Dowless appeared before the state elections board Tuesday, which is holding a hearing about what happened in last year's 9th congressional district race. Dowless is accused of using illegal methods to boost the number of mail-in ballots going to Republican Mark Harris. Harris holds a slim lead over Democrat Dan McCready in the country's last undecided congressional election.

Dowless' attorney told the elections board he won't testify without a legal protection against prosecution for events he describes. The board refused.

The race wasn't certified, but the elections board is expected to either declare a winner or order a new election after the hearing.

North Carolina State Board of Elections investigators presented evidence Monday to the State Board of Elections, showing that the company Harris hired to help with his political campaign ultimately paid McCrae Dowless to illegally collect absentee ballots in a "coordinated" and "unlawful" scheme in Bladen and Robeson counties.

On Monday, investigators kicked off a multi-day Board of Elections hearing by laying out evidence gathered during a two-month long investigation. That investigation included 42 voter interviews, 30 subject witnesses, and subpoenas of documents.

The scheme involved a firm called Red Dome. That firm, which was hired by Mark Harris' campaign, paid McCrae Dowless more than $130,000 between July 2018 and the November 2018 election.

According to investigators, Dowless paid workers cash to collect absentee request forms, to falsify absentee ballot witness certifications, and to collect absentee ballots. Dowless paid his workers $150 for every 50 absentee ballot request forms they collected and $125 for every 50 absentee ballots they collected.

The first witness, Lisa Britt, said she worked for Dowless. She testified that she lied during television interviews and witness statements in order to protect Dowless.

Britt testified for nearly two hours. She testified that she voted illegally in 2018. She also explained how she mailed in absentee ballots without raising red flags that they were illegal.

Toward the end of her testimony, she said she felt that Mark Harris was the "one innocent person" in the whole scheme. She testified that she did not believe he knew anything about the election fraud happening in the 9th District.

The Board of Elections hearing is expected to last several days.

The evidence is being presented to a newly appointed Board of Elections.

The previous board voted 7-2 against certifying Republican Mark Harris' 905-vote win over Democrat Dan McCready because of those allegations.

RELATED:'So unfair:' NC residents remain without representation as 9th District fight drags onNC 9th district: Republican candidate Mark Harris petitions for certification before big shakeup for Board of ElectionsMark Harris breaks silence, says he would 'wholeheartedly support' new election if there's fraud

(Copyright ©2019 ABC11-WTVD-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved - The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Key witness testifies to tampering with absentee ballots in N.C. House race

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Feb. 19, 2019, 12:25 AM GMT

By Leigh Ann Caldwell

RALEIGH, N.C. — A key witness testified Monday that she engaged in fraudulent and illegal activity involving absentee ballots in a congressional race in North Carolina as part of a get-out-the vote operation to benefit the Republican congressional candidate in a race that is still unresolved.

In frank testimony before the North Carolina State Board of Elections, Lisa Britt said that she was paid to collect absentee ballots in the 2018 election by McCrae Dowless, a political operative hired by consultants for Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris.

Britt said some of the ballots she collected were unsealed and uncompleted and testified she filled out the options left blank for Republican candidates — an admission of vote tampering that violates North Carolina law.

The state board has been investigating allegations of such irregularities since before last November's election when Harris finished with an unofficial lead of 905 votes over Democrat Dan McCready and has twice refused to certify the results.

Britt’s testimony as well as the testimony of a handful of other witnesses and the findings of the investigation unveiled Monday painted a picture of an extensive mail-in ballot harvesting effort where Dowless had a cohort of workers collect large numbers of absentee ballot request forms and ballots.

The first day of what is expected to be two or three days of testimony included a presentation of the state's investigation, which found significant questionable activity in two rural counties in the ninth congressional district — Bladen and Robeson.

“We believe that the evidence that we will provide today will show that a coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme operated during the general election in Bladen and Robeson counties,” said Kim Westbrook Strach, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Elections.

"We will also show in our investigation efforts were made to obstruct this investigation and the testimony provided at this hearing," Strach said.

At the end of the hearing the board will determine if it will certify the election or hold a new election. A new election could be called if the board finds “irregularities” that “taint the results of the entire election and cast doubt on its fairness.”

The investigation is centered around a key figure, Dowless, who was hired by the Red Dome Consulting Group for a “get-out-the-vote” operation for the Harris campaign, which paid Red Dome for its services.

Strach revealed that Red Dome paid Dowless $131,375 for the 2018 primary and general election, including $83,693 for the general election.

According to testimony Monday, Dowless had two components to his operation — collecting absentee ballot applications and then collecting the actual ballots. He and those he hired collected at least 788 ballot requests in Bladen County and 231 in neighboring Robeson county, according to investigation findings.

Britt, a convicted felon on probation who admitted to voting in the 2018 election despite being barred from doing so in North Carolina, is Dowless’ step-daughter. She said they have a very close father-daughter relationship, but she testified against Dowless, saying that she did simply what he directed her to do.

“I didn’t think my father would send me out to do anything illegal,” Britt said.

Britt said she was paid between $150 and $175 for the collection of 50 absentee ballot applications plus food and gas. That pay scale later changed to a flat rate of $200 per week because the work became more difficult. “A lot of people don’t want to give you their absentee ballot,” she said.

Admitting to illegal vote tampering, Britt said that she would fill out ballots she collected that weren’t fully completed. She said she recalled all of the incomplete ballots contained non-votes for lower offices, and that she would fill any omitted choices with “a vote for whoever was a Republican.”

Britt testified that once she collected absentee ballot applications, she would sign them and turn them over to Dowless either in his office or at his home. She said she would also make a copy of the applications she requested so she knew where to return to collect the voters’ actual ballots.

She also said that Dowless coached her and others as to techniques to not “throw red flags” with the election board, including putting the stamp on the right way, signing witness signatures in the same color ink, and mailing absentee ballots in small numbers.

Britt insisted that Harris had no knowledge of the operation, saying he’s “innocent.” No evidence yet presented in the hearing shows that Harris knew how Dowless conducted his work.

"I think you got one innocent person in this whole thing who had no clue as what was going on and he’s getting the really bad end of the deal here and that’s Mr. Mark Harris," Britt said.

Britt’s mother and Dowless’ ex-wife, Sandra Dowless, testified that she overheard a phone call between Dowless and Harris sometime "before the middle of last September."

She said Dowless told Harris that he was leading in Bladen County because he went to the Bladen Board of Elections and looked at the votes. She said that Harris asked if that was legal and Dowless replied, “anybody can go pick up the same data.”

Britt also said that Dowless told her and half a dozen others to “stick together” and not reveal anything to investigators. Last Thursday, according to Britt, Dowless strongly urged her not to answer questions at the hearing.

Britt said she went to Dowless' house last Thursday evening at his request. Once there, he provided her and her mother with a message for her to repeat at the hearing that read: “I can tell you that haven’t done anything wrong in the election and McCrae Dowless has never told me to do anything wrong and to my knowledge he has never done anything wrong, but I am taking the 5th Amendment because I don’t have an attorney and I feel like you will try to trip me up. I am taking the fifth.”

The board looked into absentee ballot irregularities, the disclosure of early voting results and election security. They found that 595 people failed to return absentee ballots in Bladen County and another 1,493 people failed to do so in Robeson County, a significant number considering the narrow margin separating the two candidates.

When asked if she was aware that she did something wrong, Britt said she was.

“I do feel that I have done wrong. Did I know I was doing wrong? No, ma'am, I didn't. Yeah, I do feel like I’ve done wrong,” Britt said.

When asked if she believed Dowless did anything wrong, Britt responded, “Yes ma’am.”

Near the end of the day, McCrae Dowless himself, who was in attendance at the hearing and had listened to the testimonies, was called as the last witness. Dowless' attorney, Cynthia Singletary, asked whether he was being compelled to testify, which the state board said would have granted him immunity under North Carolina law. The board then met with Dowless in closed session, after which they declined to compel him to testify. His lawyer would not allow him to testify voluntarily, and he was dismissed.

Leigh Ann Caldwell is a political reporter for NBC News who covers Capitol Hill and elections. 

Rich Gardella contributed.

NC elections chief details 'coordinated, unlawful absentee ballot' scheme in 9th District

A North Carolina political operative paid workers to collect absentee ballots and falsify witness certifications for those ballots, the state’s chief elections official said Monday.

The stunning remarks by North Carolina State Elections Director Kim Strach at a hearing of the state Board of Elections offered the most detailed description to date of the breadth of a months-long investigation into alleged fraud in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.

Republican Mark HarrisMark HarrisNC elections chief details 'coordinated, unlawful absentee ballot' scheme in 9th District NC elections board to hold hearing on disputed House race on Feb. 18 Five takeaways from the latest fundraising reports in the lead-up to 2020 MORE currently leads Democrat Dan McCready in the race by just 905 votes. But the allegations of fraud and a protracted fight over the composition of the state elections board has left the outcome of the race in limbo for months.

Democrats have called for a new election in the 9th District, arguing that the alleged fraud has marred the current election results.

Meanwhile, Republicans have called on state elections officials to certify Harris as the winner. They argue that the alleged fraud did not affect enough ballots to swing the results of the election.

“Dr. Harris received 420 absentee by mail votes in Bladen County. He received only 259 absentee by mail votes in Robeson County. Together, that is 679 votes,” Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, said in a memo to reporters on Friday.

“His victory margin is 905 votes. Even if all of his [absentee by mail] ballots were tainted, his 905-vote margin would stand.”

In her opening remarks, Strach detailed an alleged ballot-tampering scheme operated by Leslie McCrae Dowless, a political operative in rural Bladen County who she said hired workers to falsify absentee ballot request forms, collect absentee ballots and falsify witness certifications in an apparent violation of state election laws.

The alleged scheme was coordinated and well resourced, Strach said. She also said that security at the elections office in Bladen County, where some of the alleged ballot tampering took place, had been insufficient.

Dowless allegedly paid workers $150 for every 50 absentee ballot request forms they collected and $125 for every 50 absentee ballots collected, Strach said. What’s more, Red Dome, a consulting firm hired by Harris’s campaign, paid Dowless $131,275 between July 3, 2017, and Nov. 7, 2018.

Strach said that the account of the alleged scheme was based on interviews with 142 voters and 30 witnesses. Investigators also subpoenaed thousands of financial and phone records as part of the probe, she said.

Lisa Britt, Dowless’s former stepdaughter who described the long-time operative as a “father figure,” was the first witness called to the stand on Monday. She said that during the congressional race, Dowless paid her to collect absentee ballots, including ballots that were not signed by witnesses.

Britt also acknowledged that she had filled out incomplete absentee ballots in favor of Republican candidates. She said that she delivered the ballots she collected directly to either Dowless’s office or his home.

She also said she voted in the November election, despite being on probation for a felony conviction, a violation of North Carolina state law. Dowless, she said, offered instructions on how to do that.

Dowless also instructed her to take her 5th Amendment right to not self-incriminate during her testimony, she said. Britt read a statement allegedly provided by Dowless stating that she had not done anything wrong, but saying that she was “taking the 5th Amendment because I don’t have an attorney and I feel like you will try to trip me up.”

It remained unclear on Monday what — or whether — Harris knew about the alleged ballot-tampering scheme. He is expected to be called to testify before the end of the hearing, which is scheduled to continue on Tuesday and could stretch into Wednesday.

In her testimony, Britt said that she believed that Andy Yates, a top consultant for Harris’s campaign, was aware of the alleged scheme, though she noted that she was not “100 percent” certain.

But she insisted that Harris was unaware of any wrongdoing and was not involved in Dowless’s alleged operation.

“I think you’ve got one innocent person in this whole thing who had no clue what was going on and he’s the one getting the really bad end of the deal here, and that’s Mr. Mark Harris,” Britt said.

Asked by Harris’s attorney, David Freedman, whether it would “be fair to Dr. Harris to punish him for your conduct,” Britt replied: “No, sir.”

Sandra Dowless, the political operative’s ex-wife, said in her testimony, however, that she had overheard her former husband telling Harris in a phone call that he had gone to the elections board and reviewed how many absentee ballots had been returned ahead of the Election Day.

“‘Is that legal?’” she recalled Harris asking Dowless in the conversation. She said that her ex-husband assured Harris that “wouldn’t do anything illegal.”

Another witness, Kelly Hendrix, told a similar story to Britt’s on Monday. She said that she was paid to collect absentee ballot request forms and absentee ballots, and that she would deliver them directly to Dowless.

Hendrix, who said she began helping Dowless with his absentee ballot operation in 2016, insisted, however, that the absentee ballots that she collected were sealed when she received them and that she never assisted anyone in filling out their ballots.

At least four of the five members of the North Carolina State Board of Elections would have to vote to order a new election in the 9th District. The board is made up of three Democrats and two Republicans.

Regardless of whether state election officials decide to certify Harris as the winner of the race, House members could decide to challenge the election results and investigate the fraud allegations — a move that could lead lawmakers to call for a new election.

Updated at 5:11 p.m.