Updates on the NC-9 Republican voter fraud scandal:
https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/c...ballots-in-us-house-district-9-race/882660808
What Channel 9 found appears to be a targeted effort to illegally pick up ballots, in which even the person picking them up had no idea whether those ballots were even delivered to the elections board.
Consistently, Channel 9 found the same people signing as witnesses for the people voting, which is very rare.
Of the 159 submitted and accepted absentee ballot envelopes, below is the breakdown of those who signed as witnesses:
Woody Hester witnessed 44
James Singletary witnessed 42
Lisa Britt witnessed 42
Ginger Eason witnessed 28
Jessica Dowless witnessed 15
Cheryl Kinlaw witnessed 13
Deborah Edwards witnessed 11
Sandra Dowless witnessed 10
Many times, people on that list witnessed ballots together.
Channel 9’s political reporter Joe Bruno went door-to-door in Bladen County trying to find out who these people are.
No one answered at Woody Hester’s home. James Singletary wasn’t home either and Lisa Britt doesn’t live at the address she said she did on the ballots.
Bruno then visited Ginger Eason. She told him why her name appeared so many times as a witness.
“I was helping McCrae pick up ballots,” Eason said.
Eason said Leslie McCrae Dowless, Jr. paid her $75 to $100 a week to go around and pick up finished absentee ballots.
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Eason said she never discarded ballots or saw who people were voting for, but after picking them up, she didn’t mail them. She said she gave them to Dowless.
She said Dowless never told her what she was doing was illegal.
For days, Channel 9 has been trying to contact Dowless. On Monday, Bruno confronted him, but he did not answer his questions.
“Did you pay people to pick up ballots?” Bruno asked.
“At this time, I have no comment. Have a great day,” Dowless replied.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...60ce2a8148f_story.html?utm_term=.c2663a005dba
Unusually high numbers of mail-in ballots were requested in the county — and unusually high numbers of those requested ballots were never returned, according to state records.
A disproportionate number of unreturned ballots had been sent to voters of color, who tend to vote Democratic. Nearly 55 percent of ballots mailed to Native American voters and 36 percent mailed to African American voters were not returned, while the non-return rate among white voters in the district was just 18 percent, according to state records.
In one subsidized apartment complex in Bladenboro, called Village Oak, half a dozen voters interviewed by The Post on Sunday said they were approached this fall by a woman who asked them to hand over their absentee ballots. Two other voters in other parts of the county told The Post similar stories.
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Yates, Harris’s consultant, said that Dowless was hired by the campaign this year to contact absentee voters and urge them to vote for Harris on their mail-in ballots.
Before the May primary, Dowless set up his operation inside an empty storefront that Smith said he allowed him to use. With an office next door, Smith said he visited regularly and got a good view of Dowless’s operation.
He said Dowless told him he had a crew of about a dozen workers — many of whom he saw at the office — who moved from one precinct to the next, knocking on voters’ doors and offering them ballot request forms.
Once the absentee ballots were mailed to voters, Dowless used public lists of mail-in ballot recipients and sent his crew to collect them and promise to turn them in, Smith said.
“He would report to the campaign every day, ‘We got 50 today’ or ‘We turned in 60 today,’ ” said Smith, who fell out with Dowless after this year’s primary, when they supported different candidates for sheriff.
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Yates, the campaign consultant, confirmed that another contractor for Red Dome gave Dowless electronic lists of voters who had been sent ballots.
The sole purpose, he said, was for Dowless to follow up with those voters to encourage them to cast their ballots for Harris.
“To be clear, I instructed Mr. Dowless on a number of occasions that neither he nor anyone working with him or volunteering with him could collect ballots,” Yates said, adding that if he knew Dowless or his staff were taking ballots, he would have severed ties with the operative.
Smith said that in the primary, Dowless focused on three Bladen County precincts in particular: Bladenboro 1, Bladenboro 2 and Bethel, places that had high numbers of mail-in votes, according to state records.
Smith said he never saw Dowless destroy a ballot.
Yates said that Dowless called him regularly to give him updates on the number of absentee-ballot requests he had collected but that they did not discuss numbers of absentee votes he was delivering for Harris.
In the spring primary, Harris defeated the incumbent, Pittenger, by fewer than 1,000 votes — thanks in part to winning an overwhelming 96 percent of Bladen County’s absentee mail-in ballots.
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Seven residents of Village Oak interviewed Sunday recounted seeing the operation in action. Jeneva Legions, 30, who works at the Family Dollar store down the road, said several women came to her apartment in October right after her absentee ballot had arrived in the mail.
Legions said one of the women urged her to fill out her name, Social Security number and signature. When that woman came back, “she just said, ‘I’ll take it,’ and I gave it to her.” The ballot wasn’t sealed, Legions said. Legions said she does not remember filling out the ballot but would have voted a straight Democratic ticket. State records show that her mail-in ballot was never returned to county elections officials.
Asked why she turned over the ballot, Legions said: “You know, I’m thinking, she’s with, you know, the voting people. So I’m thinking she’s coming by to get my ballot.”
Beverly Tyler, 45, also a resident of Village Oak, said a woman came to her as well, asking for her absentee ballot. Tyler said she remembers seeing a truck parked in front of her door with a Mark Harris logo on it. Tyler, who is unemployed and seeking disability benefits for a back injury, said she turned her ballot over as well. She said she does not remember whom she voted for. Her ballot was turned in to the county, records show.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” she said, to explain why she turned over her ballot. “I thought everything was okay.”
Stacy Holcomb, 57, another resident who is on disability for a knee injury, described much the same — though he said the woman came by twice, first to prompt him to fill out a ballot request form and then, after the ballot had arrived in the mail, to collect it.
“I filled it out and gave it to her,” he said. Holcomb said he recalls sealing the ballot before he handed it over. He said he does not remember whom he voted for. His ballot was turned in.
All of the voters described the woman as young with long, straight blond hair. The woman sometimes stays with her mother in the Village Oak complex, they said.
When The Post knocked on the door of that apartment Sunday, a woman fitting her description came to the door.
“I’ve got nothing to say,” she said, two toddlers visible behind her, before shutting the door.