RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina officials 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 now disputed 2018 congressional race, according to documents released Wednesday.
The documents detail a two year investigation by the North Carolina State Board of Elections into Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. Elections officials have described the 62-year-old convicted felon from rural Bladen County as a “person of interest” in their ongoing investigation into irregularities in the Nov. 6 vote in the state’s 9th Congressional District.
In a January 2018 memo referring Dowless and others for criminal charges, state elections investigators detailed interviews in which people who had worked for Dowless in 2016 election cycle described collecting absentee ballots from voters and giving them to Dowless. Because of the potential for mischief, it is against the law in North Carolina for anyone other than a voter or immediate family member to handle someone’s absentee ballot before it is sealed and mailed.
Investigators also alleged Dowless attempted to interfere with their investigation by calling witnesses and warning them before they could be interviewed.
The referral to state and federal prosecutors came months before a May GOP primary and November general election in which Republican Mark Harris eked out narrow victories.