Two years ago, North Carolina was ground zero for probably the most ham-handed case of election fraud in recent American history. Republican Mark Harris’ apparent 905-vote victory over Democrat Dan McCready in the normally red-tinted NC-09 was thrown into doubt by evidence of massive absentee ballot fraud on the eastern end of the Charlotte-to-Fayetteville district.
It turns out that McCrae Dowless, a political operative from Bladen County on the district’s eastern edge, orchestrated an absentee-ballot harvesting operation that was shot through with irregularities that crossed the line into outright criminal conduct. Among other things, ballots were collected before they were sealed and filled in before they were completed. At least two people admitted on camera that they helped Dowless collect ballots after their names turned up on a list of people who witnessed an implausible number of ballots.
Ultimately, CNN concluded that at least 1,000 absentee ballots in Bladen and Robeson counties never made it to Raleigh. Combined with other irregularities, it was enough for the state board of elections threw out the election and ordered a special election, which was ultimately won by Republican Dan Bishop. Later, a team of statistics students at Carolina put an exact figure on it—1,500. In other words, Harris’ “lead” only came because 1,500 people were effectively prevented from voting.
Last year, Dowless was indicted on state charges of illegally possessing absentee ballots, obstruction of justice, perjury, subornation of perjury and conspiracy. Well, things just got a lot hotter for Dowless this afternoon. Federal prosecutors in Raleigh unsealed a four-count indictment charging Dowless with Social Security fraud.
Leslie McCrae Dowless, the central figure in the election fraud investigation that led to a re-do of the 2018 congressional race in North Carolina’s 9th district, has been indicted on new charges related to his political activity.
On Tuesday, a federal court judge unsealed documents highlighting how Dowless has been charged with defrauding the Social Security Administration for payments he received while he was working for candidates in 2017 and 2018.
Read the indictment here. It was filed under seal on April 4.
Dowless filed for disability benefits in February 2013. After several false starts due to making too much money, he was finally granted disability benefits in November 2016. He filed for retirement benefits in July 2018. However, he didn’t tell SSA that he was being paid for working on the Harris campaign and another campaign. He ultimately earned a total of $132,000 from his campaign work. Indeed, he’d already received $64,000 for his campaign work when he filed for retirement.
As a result, the feds contend that Dowless received over $14,200 payments to which he was not entitled. If convicted, he faces 10-16 months in federal prison, plus forfeiture of the fraudulent Social Security benefits.
Dowless is in a really difficult spot, between these charges and the state charges he already faces. Any chance for leniency depends on whether he tells everything he knows about this fraud—including what Harris may have known and when he knew it.