North Carolina ballot fraud investigation

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North Carolina ballot fraud investigation yields new charges

JONATHAN DREW

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Associated Press•July 30, 2019

FILE - In this Dec. 5, 2018 file photo, Leslie McCrae Dowless poses for a portrait outside of his home in Bladenboro, N.C. A ballot fraud investigation has produced new felony charges against Dowless, the political operative at the center of a disputed North Carolina congressional election. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman announced Tuesday, July 30, 2019 that Leslie McCrae Dowless was indicted on new charges related to the 2018 general election including perjury, obstruction of justice and absentee ballot possession. He was charged earlier this year with counts related to the 2016 general election and 2018 primary.(Travis Long/The News & Observer via AP, File)

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A ballot fraud investigation produced new felony charges Tuesday against the political operative at the center of a disputed North Carolina congressional election that's being rerun.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said in a news release that Leslie McCrae Dowless was indicted on new charges related to the 2018 general election including perjury, obstruction of justice and absentee ballot possession. He and others were charged earlier this year with counts related to the 2016 general election and 2018 primary.

Evidence that Dowless and others had improperly collected ballots prompted the state elections board, which conducted its own inquiry earlier this year, to order a new election for the 9th Congressional District seat.

Echoing and expanding on previous allegations, the new indictment accuses Dowless of directing people to collect incomplete absentee ballots and make it appear that the voter had finished them. Several others also are facing new charges.

The indictment states that Dowless "instructed individuals to sign certifications indicating they had witnessed the voter vote and properly executed the absentee ballot when they had not, and mailed or instructed others to mail the absentee ballot in such a manner to conceal the fact that the voter had not personally mailed it himself."

It is generally against the law in North Carolina for anyone other than the voter or a close relative to handle a mail-in ballot, a measure aimed at guarding against manipulation.

The indictment says the actions of Dowless and others "served to undermine the integrity of the absentee ballot process and the public's confidence in the outcome of the electoral process." It also accuses Dowless of encouraging others to lie to authorities about their ballot-collection activities.

Dowless had worked for Republican congressional hopeful Mark Harris, among other candidates, though Harris isn't mentioned in the new indictment. Harris has not been charged.

Harris appeared to have a slim lead over Democrat Dan McCready in the 2018 general election for the 9th District, but the state elections board found that the election had been tainted and ordered a new contest. Harris chose not to run in the new race.

The repeat general election will be held this fall, with McCready facing Republican Dan Bishop in the mostly rural district that includes part of Charlotte and extends eastward across several counties.

Dowless' defense attorney, Cynthia Singletary, didn't immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.

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Follow Drew at www.twitter.com/JonathanLDrew

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This must be a mistake.....we keep hearing that there are no issues of election fraud.   Interesting that this guy was apolitical.....helped both sides as long as there was money in it for him.  Notice there was virtually no reference to party affiliation in the piece.....which if he had mostly been helping the GOP the Charlotte paper would have lead with that comment.   Got counties all over the rural south with more ballots cast than voters registered. 

And of course this from a while back....which sounded suspicious. . 

Pennsylvania election officials say they are not planning to investigate the extraordinary turnout and Obama votes garnered from parts of Philadelphia last Tuesday.

The Pennsylvania Department of State is explaining away the extraordinary vote totals. “In a presidential election year, there are times where you get extremely high turnout,” said Ron Ruman, press secretary for Pennsylvania’s Department of State, in a telephone interview with Fox News.  “We would investigate if we thought there was something shady going on. But at this point, we have no reason to think that.”

In 59 voting precincts in Philadelphia, Barack Obama got 19,605 votes. Mitt Romney zero. Not one vote. Vote totals like these are hard to believe.

Ruman’s comments came as Philadelphia news outlets and election analysts have flagged the near-unanimity with which the Obama-Biden ticket swept pockets of the City of Brotherly Love. As the Philadelphia Inquirer first reported last week, six of Philadelphia’s 66 wards handed the president victory shares of 99 percent or better.  In 20 of the wards, the Obama vote totals exceeded 97 percent.

On Monday, the Inquirer reported that in 59 of Philadelphia’s “divisions” — these are subsets of wards, wherein fewer than 1,000 people might be registered to vote — GOP nominee Mitt Romney failed to win even a single vote. Collectively, the votes for Obama across these divisions added up to 19,605, to Romney’s zero.

Or This:   https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/

And yet folks on this site declare that voter fraud is non-existent.....