RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina elections officials had sought criminal charges after the 2016 election against the man now at the center of absentee ballot fraud allegations, but prosecutors didn’t indict him before the disputed 2018 congressional race.
Documents released Wednesday by the North Carolina State Board of Elections detail its investigation over the last two years into Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. Elections officials describe the 62-year-old convicted felon as a “person of interest” in their ongoing investigation into irregularities with the Nov. 6 vote in the state’s 9th District.
Republican Mark Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. State leaders from both parties concede a do-over election might now be needed.
Investigators are probing whether Dowless and others working on Harris’ behalf ran an illegal operation to collect large numbers of absentee ballots from voters.