Leslie McCrae Dowless is facing new indictments for his part in orchestrating election fraud in the 2018 North Carolina 9th District congressional race between Republican Mark Harris and Democratic candidate Dan McCready. Dowless was originally arrested in 2017 and charged with illegal ballot-handling and obstruction of justice. More recently, he was arrested this past February and charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and two counts of possession of absentee ballots.
The new charges include ”two counts of felony obstruction of justice, perjury, solicitation to commit perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice and illegal possession of absentee ballots.” All of the charges stem from allegations that Dowless harvested thousands of absentee ballots and paid others to do the same in hopes of keeping Democratic Party votes from being counted. Harris was initially announced as the winner by less than a 1,000 vote margin.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has promised a wide-ranging investigation, and Dowless has been indicted along with seven alleged co-conspirators for this alleged election fraud. However, there is no mention yet of whether or not Harris will be brought in for his criminal negligence in hiring dubious actors such as Dowless. Harris has lied about their relationship and the timeline of Dowless’ work for the Harris campaign. He also bowed out of a new election ordered by election officials—seemingly so as to lessen his chances of facing charges.
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